Dell, HP back Microsoft in Word legal battle

Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's two largest computer makers, have sided with Microsoft in its appeal of a ban that would block Word sales in the U.S.

The two companies warned that the injunction would ripple through the PC ecosystem, and they said that without more time to test any Microsoft tweaks, users might lose data.

Dell and HP filed nearly identical amicus curiae, or "friend of the court," briefs earlier this week with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is considering Microsoft's request to overturn a Texas court's verdict and quash the injunction that prohibits Microsoft from selling current versions of Word 2003 and Word 2007 after Oct. 10.

Both companies asked the three-judge panel to block the injunction or, failing that, to extend the deadline by four months. "At a minimum, should the injunction be affirmed following the Court's scheduled hearing on Sept. 23, 2009, Hewlett-Packard respectfully requests that the injunction not take effect until 120 days after this Court's decision," HP's brief read.

The computer manufacturers said that if Microsoft were forced to modify Word 2003 and Word 2007 to comply with the injunction, they would likewise be required to change the software they factory-install on their new PCs. Many new computers, for example, come with Microsoft's Office or a trial version of the productivity suite.

"If Microsoft is required to ship a revised version of Word in Dell's computers, the change would need to be made to Dell's [disk] images," the Round Rock, Texas-based PC vendor's lawyers said, referring to the disk images used by computer makers to prep new PCs' hard drives. "Making such a change would require extensive time- and resource-consuming retesting."

Dell and HP have waded into a case that's more than two years old. In 2007, Toronto, Ontario-based software developer i4i Inc. charged Microsoft with infringing on its patent for creating custom XML documents. Last May, a federal jury in Texas found Microsoft guilty and awarded it $200 million in damages. Two weeks ago, U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Davis, who oversaw the case, tacked on another $90 million in damages and interest and blocked Microsoft from selling Word in its current form.

The salient point for Dell and HP is the injunction Davis slapped on Microsoft.

The two companies told the judges that because the ban would not only harm their sales, but also affect the public, the injunction should be set aside. "The District Court's injunction thus will impose heavy burdens on Dell, and will also adversely impact the public interest," said Dell's brief. "The court should consider these factors in weighing the equities relevant to Microsoft's motion to stay the injunction."

Microsoft made a similar argument last week when it filed its motion for a stay of the injunction. At that time, Microsoft warned of "massive disruptions" to its sales of Office, as well as to the sales of important partners, and named both Dell and HP.

Dell and HP added their voices to the chorus of implied chaos. "The District Court's injunction of Microsoft Word will have an impact far beyond Microsoft. Microsoft Word is ubiquitous among word processing software and is included on [redacted] computers sold by Hewlett-Packard."

The public versions of both briefs were heavily redacted. Dell and HP said that the deleted material included descriptions of the "contractual provisions governing software changes between Dell, [Hewlett-Packard] and Microsoft."

A Dell spokesman and an HP spokeswoman declined to comment further for their companies, with the latter citing company policy not to comment on pending litigation.

A source familiar with the amicus curiae briefs, however, hinted that it would be difficult if not impossible for Dell and HP to meet the October deadline. The companies first must receive new code from Microsoft, test the resulting disk images before using them to format new PCs' hard drives and then get those systems into the sales channels and pull out existing PCs that are equipped with current versions of Word.

"The 120 days should be a sufficient window" to do all of that, said the source, who asked not to be identified. The possibility exists that Dell and HP would have to pull Office from their PCs, the source acknowledged.

For its part, Microsoft said during the May trial that it would take at least five months to work up a Word version that omitted the offending custom XML feature. However, i4i countered by claiming that a fix could be produced much faster than that.

An oral hearing on Microsoft's appeal is scheduled for Sept. 23, after i4i files its response and Microsoft is given a last chance to rebut.

Free software group attacks Windows 7 'sins'

The Free Software Foundation today launched a campaign against Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming Windows 7 operating system, calling it "treacherous computing" that stealthily takes away rights from users.

At the Web site Windows7Sins.org, the Boston-based FSF lists the seven "sins" that proprietary software such as Windows 7 commits against computer users.

They include: Poisoning education, locking in users, abusing standards such as OpenDocument Format (ODF), leveraging monopolistic behavior, threatening user security, enforcing Digital Rights Management (DRM) at the request of entertainment companies concerned about movie and music piracy, and invading privacy.

"Windows, for some time now, has really been a DRM platform, restricting you from making copies of digital files," said executive director Peter Brown. And if Microsoft's Trusted Computing technology were fully implemented the way the company would like, the vendor would have "malicious and really complete control over your computer."

The result is that Microsoft could do things like Amazon.com, which last month went into customers' Kindle e-readers and deleted illegally-sold copies of novels such as George Orwell's 1984, he said.

"This is treacherous computing," Brown said.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The group, best-known for overseeing the General Public License (GPL) used by most open-source software, including Linux, will hold a rally at noon in Boston Common, where it will unveil a 12-foot-tall art installation depicting Windows 7 "being trashed," Brown said.

The group is also sending a letter (available at the group's Web site) to top executives at Fortune 500 companies that argues their companies would benefit ethically, technically and, in the long-term, financially, from switching away from Windows and Microsoft Office to free alternatives such as Linux and OpenOffice.org.

Founded in the mid-1980s by hacker-activist Richard Stallman, the FSF argues that free software and source code is a moral right. It takes pains to distinguish itself from the open-source movement, which advocates sharing of source code but tolerates charging for software.

Both groups, however, view proprietary software vendors such as Microsoft, Adobe Systems Inc., and Apple Inc. as the enemy, Brown said.

Even with DRM, users running Windows PCs still maintain more freedom and privacy than those who use cloud computing services such as Google Docs and store their data there, Brown said.

"That is the ultimate giving-away of your freedom," he said. "That's not a software freedom issue, it's a stupidity issue."

While Brown acknowledges that many Fortune 500 companies base their businesses around proprietary business models similar to Microsoft, he also points out that most of them, at least regarding software, are more consumer than vendor.

"Large corporations spend an awful lot of money on software. They face numerous software audits and more vendor lock-in than you or me," Brown said. "Do you think they would rather be driving on a freeway, or always be paying on toll roads?"

"I'm not expecting an instant wave of companies switching off XP to Linux," he said. "But we would like get that debate going. Hopefully, some will re-evaluate and say no to Windows 7."

Windows 7 Family Pack available for pre-order early online

A special Windows 7 upgrade package for households with more than one PC is now available for pre-order online ahead of schedule and at a discount from Microsoft's previously announced price.

Windows 7 Family Pack, which offers the ability to upgrade from one version of Windows to Windows 7 on three PCs for a discounted price, is available for pre-order on several online retailer Web sites, including eCOST.com and Provantage, for $146.99 and $140.31, respectively.

Microsoft previously said the limited-time offer, which is available until supplies last, would be available for pre-order for $149.99 on Oct. 18 and then generally available on Oct. 22, the official worldwide release date of Windows 7.

The Family Pack allows users to install Windows 7 Home Premium for a reduced price on up to three PCs in a household that already has a version of Windows installed.

Microsoft originally said Family Pack would only be available in North America. However, earlier this week the company extended its release to eight countries in Europe -- U.K., Ireland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden -- because of its decision to release Windows 7 with Internet Explorer 8 installed in those countries.

Previously, Microsoft had said it would offer a Windows 7 E version of the OS without IE 8 as a remedy stemming from the European Commission's antitrust suit against the company. The company recently changed its mind and said it would pre-install IE8 on Windows 7 in Europe but give customers a ballot-screen allowing them to choose to install a competing browser if they like. Windows 7 E was not going to have a browser, so a user would have to do a clean install of the new OS rather than upgrade from a previous version of Windows to ensure no browser was installed during the process.

Both upgrades and full versions of Windows 7 have been available for pre-order on Amazon.com since July.

FBI investigating mystery laptops sent to governors

There may be a new type of Trojan Horse attack to worry about

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to figure out who sent five Hewlett-Packard laptop computers to West Virginia Governor Joe Mahchin a few weeks ago, with state officials worried that they may contain malicious software.

Sources familiar with the investigation say other states have been targeted too, with HP laptops mysteriously ordered for officials in 10 states. Four of the orders were delivered, while the remaining six were intercepted, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

The West Virginia laptops were delivered to the governor's office several weeks ago, prompting state officials to contact police, according to Kyle Schafer, the state's chief technology officer. "We were notified by the governor's office that they had received the laptops and they had not ordered them," he said. "We checked our records and we had not ordered them."

State officials in Vermont and Wyoming told him they've received similar unsolicited orders, Schafer said. Representatives from those states could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Schafer doesn't know what's on the laptops, but he handed them over to the authorities. "Our expectation is that this is not a gesture of good will," he said. "People don't just send you five laptops for no good reason."

The computers are now being held as evidence by state police, who are working with the FBI to figure out how the machines were sent to the governor's office, said Michael Baylous, a sergeant with the West Virginia State Police.

The West Virginia laptops were delivered Aug. 5, according to the Charleston Gazette, which first reported the story.

Although there is no evidence that the computers contain malicious code, HP confirmed Thursday that there have been several such orders and that they have been linked to fraud. "HP is aware that fraudulent state government orders recently have been placed for small amounts of HP equipment," spokeswoman Pamela Bonney said in an e-mail message. "HP took prompt corrective action to address the fraudulent orders and is working with law enforcement personnel on a criminal investigation."

With users now more reluctant to install suspicious software or open attachments on their networks, scammers appear to be looking for new ways to get inside the firewall. On Tuesday, the National Credit Union Administration warned that an unnamed credit union had received two fake CDs designed to look like training materials. Installing the CDs "could result in a possible security breach to your computer system," the administration warned.

Scammers have also tried to put malware on USB devices and then left them outside company offices, hoping someone will plug them into a computer and inadvertently install malicious software on the network. Many Windows systems are configured to automatically run software included on CDs and USB devices using a Windows feature called AutoRun.

Many organized criminals would be happy to spend the cost of five PCs in order to access government computers, said Steve Santorelli, director of investigations with security consultancy Team Cymru. "What is a netbook? $700? You send five of them; you're dropping three grand, and say you get into the Congressional e-mail system. How valuable would that be?"

Mac OS X Snow Leopard offers a slew of hidden features and lays the groundwork for big advances to come - Part II

A new Finder, finally

The Finder -- Mac OS X's file manager -- has been rewritten in the Cocoa development language. It still looks the same and behaves the same, but it is not the same. The new Finder supports all of the core technologies in Snow Leopard, including full 64-bit support, better live preview of files, and Grand Central Dispatch. The result is a Finder that is much more fluid with animations and much more responsive, and doesn't become hung up if, for example, network shares inadvertently become disconnected.

The Finder has learned a few other tricks. It has the ability to restore files to their original folders, which is useful if you moved a document to the Trash and want to quickly return it from whence it came. Larger icon sizes up to 512 x 512 pixels are now supported, which is good for aging eyes and the ever-increasing resolution of modern monitors.

You can change search locations in Finder preferences and permanently sort results the way you want. And when you click the oval button in the upper right-hand corner of a Finder window -- you need to be viewing files as icons -- you get a slick animation that minimizes the window size and prominently displays a slider used to increase the size of the icons. (Icons can also be resized using the pinch gesture on Apple's laptop trackpads.)

The Finder also now displays a hard drive's calculated size differently than before, to better correspond to marketing labels on hard drives. In other words, a 500GB drive now indicates there's 500GB of space, not 465GB. You don't really have new space, just a more consistent way of calculating it.

Those aren't the only visual tweaks: Command-click (or right-click) on the desktop and choose "Change Desktop background." After the System Preferences launch, you can click through some stylish new desktop wallpapers, including some gorgeous shots of plants, artwork, outdoor scenery and -- not surprisingly -- snow leopards.

From Carbon to Cocoa

To appreciate how important Snow Leopard's new Finder is, first you need to understand a bit of programming history.

When Mac OS X was originally released nine years ago, Apple developed a toolset called Carbon to help developers port applications from the outdated architecture in Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. Using Carbon, updated apps could take advantage of the features OS X provided, such as true multitasking and modern memory management.

Objective-C and Cocoa are the native programming languages for Mac OS X, but writing applications in Cocoa would mean starting from scratch for developers, so most chose to port their applications instead of rewriting them entirely. But it has become increasingly clear that Carbon is Apple's red-headed stepchild, as some of the technologies that were evolving in Cocoa, like 64-bit support and services never made it to Carbon. (Sure, Carbon was part of the family; but it was never truly embraced like Cocoa.)

With the development of Mac OS X 10.4, Apple began insisting that developers rewrite their applications using Cocoa. Snow Leopard completes the pictures because the core technologies inherent in it can be accessed only by applications written in Objective-C and Cocoa.

The Dock matures

The Dock's preference pane now sports an option called "Minimize windows into application icon," which does exactly that. Normally, minimized windows are stored on the same side of the Dock divider -- with this option selected, minimized windows slide into their Dock icon instead, reducing Dock clutter.
Clicking an application's Dock icon brings up the first window minimized, but clicking and holding on the Dock icon reveals another new trick: built-in Exposé.

Exposé is a window-management feature (available since 2003) that allows a user to quickly locate an open window. With a button press or a gesture, all open windows shrink to fit the screen so you can select the one you want.

With Snow Leopard, the Dock has picked up the ability to display windows belonging to a single application; just click and hold the corresponding Dock icon for that app. Doing so darkens the screen and gathers any windows belonging to the application, à la Exposé -- even if there are minimized windows.

You can also press the Command and Tab keys to move to the next application, whose open windows spring into view. And Dock folders and windows finally support drag and drop.

The Dock now sports a sleeker-looking contextual menu with white text on a semi-transparent black background. The Keep in Dock, Open at Login, and Show in Finder menu options have been consolidated into an Options submenu, but Quit and Hide are still easily clickable, and multiple windows that are in use by the app still display. (It looks good, and Apple should have extended the new Dock menu look to contextual menus.)

Drilling through folders in the Dock is easier, too. You can scroll through items using Grid view.

System Preferences get tweaks

There are a number of changes in System Preferences that generally build on the features already present in Leopard:

• In the Security preference pane, you can now set a delay time for sleep or screen saver password entries. "Use secure virtual memory" is now enabled by default, and you can disable Location Services.
• The Keyboard preference pane features a new Shortcut interface, making it easier to assign shortcut keys and activate specific options, such as which abilities are displayed in Services.
• The Date and Time pane allows you to set your location automatically using Snow Leopard's built-in Location Services. Safari also taps into this feature, showing the closest results for certain search queries. These should be handy for people who travel a lot.
• The MobileMe preference pane gets an update: Syncing iDisk now gives you the option to always keep the most recent version of a file, which will automatically resolve syncing conflicts based on that criteria.
• The Accounts pane now features more account avatars.
• The Trackpad pane doesn't offer new features in terms of gestures, but these gestures are now supported on laptops with first-generation multi-touch capabilities, including the original MacBook Air and 2008 MacBook Pros.
• And while the Time Machine preference hasn't gotten any new features, it has gotten faster, according to Apple. (I haven't had time to confirm this.)

Some third-party preference panes haven't yet been rewritten to take advantage of Snow Leopard's native 64-bit operation. If you try to open one that's not been updated, you're prompted to relaunch System Preferences so it can run in 32-bit mode.

Beefed up security?

Although Apple hasn't said much about efforts to beef up security in Snow Leopard, reports started circulating this week about a little-known addition that could be used down the road to strengthen the OS. Users with access to the final build spotted an unusual file that extends a File Quarantine feature already part of Leopard. Currently, if you download a file using Safari, Mail or iChat, Leopard warns you that it's from the Internet when you open it -- sort of a cautionary "Do you really want to open this file?"

Snow Leopard takes that warning a step further and will scan all files downloaded by Safari, Mail, or iChat for Trojan horses or other malware. It will then put up an alert saying the file could damage your computer. The warning also apparently tells you to put the file in the trash.

Intego, which makes anti-virus software for Macs, highlighted the addition, as did Gizmodo. At this point, the feature offers limited protection, as it apparently checks for just two known Mac trojans, according to the Register.

The apps get some attention

Apple's built-in apps have been updated as well. Not only are most of them rewritten to take advantage of Snow Leopard's core features, making them more responsive, but Mail, iCal and Address Book have all gained native compatibility with Microsoft Exchange. Mail now supports Exchange 2007 servers, something that Windows doesn't do. (In fact, Microsoft is dropping a built-in e-mail client from Windows 7 altogether; users will have to download what's now called Live Mail separately.)

It's interesting that Microsoft recently announced that Outlook is coming to the Mac next year, complete with better Exchange compatibility. I've been a Microsoft Office user my entire career and I've used -- and supported -- every version of Office for Mac and PC since Office 97. On the Mac side, Entourage has long been reviled for its sluggish interface, barely acceptable Exchange support and inefficient, easily corrupted database storage method. Microsoft has every reason to fear that businesses are looking for alternatives.

But the move to replace Entourage with Outlook on the Mac may come too late. Now that Exchange compatibility has hit the iPhone and Snow Leopard's built-in communication apps, my users and I can enjoy a Microsoft-free user experience.

Safari now runs in 64-bit mode, even if the kernel is in 32-bit mode. And it's fast. I saw recent reports that Google's Chrome browser is the fastest browser on a Mac, so I did a quick test using the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark.

In my results, Opera 10 was the slowest, Firefox 3.5 was faster, and Chrome was faster still, but it runs in 32-bit mode. Safari was tops in terms of speed. And Safari now runs plug-ins like Flash in a sandbox -- that is, its own memory space -- so if a site playing a Flash movie crashes, the browser doesn't crash with it. Anything that adds stability like this to a browser is good.

QuickTime X

In Snow Leopard, QuickTime makes the leap from version 7.x to version 10.0. In Mac OS X, QuickTime isn't just something for playing movies; it is Apple's media layer, the entire foundation for anything relating to audio or video in the operating system. Apple rewrote QuickTime in Cocoa with support for Snow Leopard's technologies in mind, including the Core technologies (Core Audio, Core Video and Core Animation), Grand Central Dispatch and 64-bit computing.

QuickTime X sports a brand new player application that looks something like Apple's iTunes when playing video. The QuickTime Player's interface is clean and refined, with minimalist controls that fade away when not needed. It now plays files with greater quality and efficiency, even using ColorSync to ensure proper color reproduction when viewing across devices such as iPhones or Apple TVs.

H.264 media plays without slowing down the Mac, using full hardware acceleration for playback and real-time video manipulation. For instance, holding down Shift and minimizing a currently playing movie shows the active video being squeezed and transformed in slow motion without stuttering or loss of quality; processor usage doesn't even blink under those normally stressful conditions.

The QuickTime X application can now record audio and video from connected microphones and cameras (and the hardware built into Apple's portables and display hardware), and screen captures can be done within the program. Like Safari 4, QuickTime X also supports the media streaming capabilities of HTML 5, dynamically adjusting playback quality on the fly for optimal viewing under static or changing conditions. It's also possible to share movies and audio to iTunes, YouTube, and MobileMe directly from the Share menu.

Final thoughts

Unlike previous operating system upgrades, customer-facing features aren't the focus of Snow Leopard. Buying Snow Leopard represents something of a leap of faith. That's one reason for the $29 price tag. But this OS lays the foundation for much faster and more efficient applications on the very same hardware you're running now. Technologically, it draws a line in the sand and dares software developers to join it.

If your Mac has a Core 2 Duo processor, dropping $30 for this upgrade isn't really a difficult decision. This time around, you're not buying eye candy. You're buying a stable operating system that will allow your applications to perform better on the same hardware you're using now.

If Mac hardware is the cool cat in the zoot suit, Snow Leopard is that cat's meow.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard offers a slew of hidden features and lays the groundwork for big advances to come - Part I

Snow Leopard is Apple's latest operating system release, making this the seventh version of Mac OS X (eighth, if you count the two versions of 10.4 "Tiger" that bridged the PowerPC-to-Intel transition). On sale for $29 beginning tomorrow, Snow Leopard offers slimmed-down code, a smaller footprint and a raft of under-the-hood technologies designed to bring additional stability and performance. It also lays a strong foundation for the future.

Nearly two years ago, in October 2007, Apple released Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) a full six months behind its original ship date. (Apple blamed the delay on the need to prepare for the launch of the first iPhone.) Leopard brought more than 300 new features and tweaks to Apple's long-evolving OS. With the release of Mac OS X 10.6 -- this time, Apple unveiled its new OS ahead of schedule -- Apple builds on the underlying technologies it began to unleash in Leopard.

What it didn't do is change the look. Unless users know where to look, they won't see much difference between Leopard and Snow Leopard. The vast majority of the changes are under the hood, but they position Apple to take advantage of hardware advances for years to come.

Apple has included new desktop background images, including this one of a snow leopard.
Click to view larger image.

This time around, the value of Snow Leopard isn't based on a checklist of new features. In fact, according to Apple, there aren't many. Tacitly acknowledging that it's tough to get people to buy something they can't see, Apple reversed directions on pricing, forgoing the usual $129 upgrade fee for a significantly more consumer-friendly $29 (unless you're upgrading from Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, in which case you'll pay $169 for the OS and a box set of Apple apps). For households with more than one Mac, Apple offers a five-pack Family Upgrade for $49.

To compare: Microsoft's Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade costs $219, and the full version is $319 (there's no Family Pack for the Ultimate edition). Why compare Apple's latest with Ultimate? Because on the Windows side, Ultimate is the full-featured version. Snow Leopard comes in just one full-featured version.

Will your hardware run this OS?

Snow Leopard has the distinction of finishing the job Apple started with Mac OS X 10.4: It's finally moving away from the old PowerPC based-architecture it dumped in 2005 when it moved to Intel processors. If you're not on an Intel-based Mac, Snow Leopard won't install.

If you're not sure whether your computer can run Snow Leopard, click on the Apple menu and check "About This Mac." If your processor is a PowerPC G4 or G5, your Mac cannot be updated with the new OS. Snow Leopard still runs older PowerPC-based applications, but it will not boot a PowerPC-based Mac.

For everyone else with Intel-based hardware, Apple requires 5GB of available disk space, 1GB RAM, and an optical disk drive capable of reading DVDs (or, in the case of the MacBook Air, a DVD drive accessible via Remote Disk).

For enterprise customers, a new operating system usually means compatibility issues with at least some mission-critical apps, and Snow Leopard is no different. IT departments will want to do some testing before rolling out Apple's latest OS, because it's almost certain that some apps will need updating. For example, Cisco Systems has noted compatibility issues with its VPN software when using Snow Leopard's optional 64-bit kernel; a Computerworld editor has confirmed that issue.

Even so, most major applications and software drivers appear to work as they should, based on our testing and reports from testers during Snow Leopard's development cycle.

Installation simplified

The Snow Leopard experience begins with the installation, which works a little differently than in the past. You can still start the Mac by holding down the C key to boot from the disc, but Apple has simplified the process.

Instead of offering several installation options as in the past, Snow Leopard is smart enough to upgrade your system without having to be told exactly how to go about doing it. And if you ever need to reinstall this OS, Snow Leopard will not write over system files which are more current than the ones being installed.

Now when you pop the installation disc into the optical drive, the installer offers just two basic options: a Utilities button that lets you run basic programs like Disk Utility and restore from Time Machine backups, and a Continue button that takes you through the license agreement to a window from which you select your hard drive.

Customizing options include Printer Support (with optional installs for Printers Used by This Mac, Nearby and Popular Printers, and All Available Printers); additional fonts; a host of language translations; X11 (the windowing system for Unix environments); Rosetta (which allows Intel Macs to use software written for PowerPC-based ones); and QuickTime 7 (for compatibility with older media formats).

After choosing where to install the new OS, Snow Leopard will copy a large chunk of the data needed for installation from the DVD to your hard drive. That helps speed up the whole process -- Apple says it's 45% faster than the old installation routine because the installer reads the data copied to your hard drive rather directly from the DVD.

About halfway through the installation, the Mac reboots and finishes up the task at hand. You may notice that the screen goes dark during the installation. That's because the whole process is automated and you don't have to monitor what's happening. If you move the mouse or touch the trackpad, the screen wakes up and you can see where things stand.

Note that you cannot install 10.6 onto a hard drive that reports a S.M.A.R.T. failure. If a power outage occurs during installation, the installation picks up from where it left off.

After the installation is done, you get the traditional Apple intro movie and registration, and a desktop that looks just like Leopard: same menu bar, same Dock, same translucent menu at the top of the screen, and the same space-themed background.

Fear not: Snow Leopard has some serious changes, even if they're not apparent.

What's waiting under the hood

Upgrading to Snow Leopard gives you additional hard drive space. Because it removes all of the old operating system files -- in previous OS X upgrades they used to go into a "Previous System" folder -- hundreds of megabytes, if not gigabytes, of space are freed up. The OS also takes up less room because the Universal code that was built into Tiger and Leopard to run PowerPC Macs is no longer needed, since Snow Leopard is Intel-only. According to Apple, most users will gain back 6GB of space. (AppleInsider delved into this issue right after Snow Leopard was announced in June 2008.)

While there are a few UI changes, the true value of Snow Leopard lies in the technologies waiting to be unleashed in applications: the ability to run programs in 64-bit mode, the use of OpenCL and the incorporation of Grand Central Dispatch.

The use of 64-bit computing will greatly improve the capabilities of computers. For example, 32-bit software can access only 4 GB of RAM at a time; 64-bit computing expands that ceiling to 16 exabytes. That's 16 billion gigabytes. Plus, 64-bit applications run faster on computers with Intel Core 2 Duo or Xeon processors. They can crunch 64-bit code twice as fast per clock cycle as computers running in 32-bit.

Apple touts Snow Leopard as being first Mac OS to finally support 64-bit from top to bottom, although the default kernel status for all consumer Macs is the 32-bit kernel. Snow Leopard supports 64-bit applications even while running 32-bit drivers. Basically, whether the machine is booted into the 32-bit kernel or the 64-bit kernel, any application that can run at 64-bit will run in that mode automatically.

By having Snow Leopard boot into the 32-bit kernel, Apple improves software compatibility. That's because kernel extensions must match the kernel's mode, or they don't work. While Apple did a fine job porting over its native applications for 64-bit compatibility, there are still some third-party vendors that haven't released updates for their software (such as the aforementioned Cisco VPN software) yet.

OpenCL, GPUs and Grand Central Dispatch

Another technology new to Snow Leopard is the OpenCL standard (download PDF), which promises to speed things up without any changes to your hardware needed.

While CPU manufacturers have shifted from increasing processor clock speeds to adding more cores to processors, graphics chip makers have continued pushing the boundaries to boost the processing power behind their graphics cards. Years ago, Apple began offloading animation effects from the CPU to the graphics processing unit (GPU), freeing up the main processors for actual data-crunching.

Every version of Mac OS X in recent years has increasingly utilized the GPU for computationally expensive tasks. In 2006, Apple unveiled Core Image and Core Animation with Mac OS X 10.4, technologies that allow real-time image and video effects to be handled by the graphics cards. With Snow Leopard, Apple takes GPU acceleration to another level by developing and publishing an open standard to offload even more work to GPUs.

Enter OpenCL, a language and runtime framework that allows developers to crunch any data-parallel algorithms on any free processing core, automatically, without needing to code for specific circumstances. The best part for Mac owners is that OpenCL works with all GPUs and CPUs available in Apple's current line-up. The best part for developers is that only the most performance-intensive aspects of their software need be rewritten to take advantage of the new technology.

While OpenCL bridges the gap between software and the available processing cores on a computer, the new problem is how to account for all these cores and software instruction threads.

That's where Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) comes in.

Grand Central Dispatch is the foundation for keeping everything running smoothly; it acts like a built-in air traffic control center, dynamically adjusting computer workload based on available hardware and resources. If the resources are available, GCD speeds things up. If the computer is busy, GCD backs off. In concert with OpenCL and 64-bit, Grand Central Dispatch should lead to a big jump in performance and optimization as applications are updated.

Twitter, Linux, Red Hat, Microsoft 'honored' at Black Hat with Pwnie Awards

Think of the annual Pwnie Awards delivered at the Black Hat conference as a geek version of the Oscars -- if they were combined with the tongue-in-cheek Razzies that celebrate the worst of Hollywood.

Twitter, Linux and Red Hat were among honorees that didn't go unscathed this time around.

Most Epic Fail honors went to the notorious Twitter/Google Apps hack from earlier this month that raised all sorts of questions about cloud computing security.

Red Hat got skewered with the Mass 0wnage award, also known as the "Pwnie for Breaking the Internet," for issuing a version of OpenSSH that left a backdoor open to hackers. The Linux development team earned "Lamest Vendor Response" recognition for "continually assuming that all kernel memory corruption bugs are only Denial-of-Service."

Naturally, Microsoft didn't slip past judges' eyes. Its vulnerability that enabled the Conficker worm to do its thing earned honors as Most Overhyped Bug.

On the more positive side, the Pwnie Awards also recognized security pros for accomplishments such as discovering bugs and demonstrating exploits. Solar Designer snagged the Lifetime Achievement Award, for among other things, being the first to demonstrate heap buffer overflow exploitation, according to the Pwnie Awards Web site.

Windows 7 worse on netbook battery life than XP?

Windows 7 cuts almost a third off the battery life of some netbooks shipping today with Windows XP, several recent reviews and user reports say.

Laptop magazine reported in its blog on Monday that during a recent test, a Toshiba netbook lost 2.5 hours of battery life when running Windows 7 instead of XP, or about 30% (6:53 for Windows 7, versus 9:24 for XP).

Web site Tom's Hardware found last month that an Acer Aspire One netbook running Windows 7's release candidate lasted 2.5 hours less than when it ran Windows XP Service Pack 3 (5:54 versus 8:28, when both were at a low-power idle state).

Complaints have also surfaced on netbook user forums such as eeeuser.com, for Asus Eee users, AspireOneUser.com, for Acer netbook users, and MSIWind.net, for MSI fans.

The complaints follow gripes that Windows 7 hastens the vampire-like battery drain of running Windows on MacBooks, either in virtualization or via Apple's Boot Camp software.

Jury's still out

The reviews are not unanimous. In a late July review comparing the Windows 7 RC versus XP on Asus' long-running Eee PC 1005HA netbook, Legit Reviews found XP to have between a 2% and 8% advantage over Windows 7. And Laptop noted that XP only had a 6% advantage over Windows 7 on an MSI U123 netbook.

But the negative reports are numerous enough that they darken Windows 7's image as being a sleeker and more-efficient reboot of Microsoft's long-running operating system, and cast some doubt on its suitability for netbooks, at least today's models.

Long battery life is one of the key selling points of netbooks, due to their high portability.

Many vendors heavily tweak their netbooks to ensure that they can run a full business day on a single charge, or more.

Microsoft previously promised that Windows 7 would improve laptop battery life by about 11% over Vista.

That would be due to better use of the graphics chip during tasks such as DVD playback, and improvements in the kernel so that CPU can more quickly switch to an idle state when not in use, and generally run more efficiently, says Microsoft (see video from Microsoft's WinHEC keynote last November).

A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment about the recent reviews and reports, but did point to a white paper, last updated June 23, 2009, describing to driver developers and hardware engineers how to optimize hardware and components for better battery life under Windows 7.

Of course, battery life for Windows Vista was widely perceived to be worse than under XP, due to its bloated codebase, which prevented Vista from running well on netbooks, as well as the poor availability of Vista drivers for many months after its launch।

Hardware drivers and how they interact with an operating system are key for battery drain. For instance, a driver that fails to let Windows turn off a Wi-Fi chip when users aren't surfing the Web could accidently result in poor battery life. Same with a graphics driver that isn't able to shift processing work from an overtaxed CPU to a fresh GPU.

Be patient, says analyst

Jack Gold, an independent research analyst, says that it's still too early to condemn Windows 7. "[With release candidates,] Microsoft often has debug code inserted to find and document problems, and the code is not optimized," Gold said. "Same is true of the preliminary drivers available."

Drivers are not written by Microsoft, but by the component makers themselves, he said. Rather than simply recycling their Vista drivers, the hardware vendors need the final release of Windows 7, which only arrived last month, and "a little time to perform their magic."

While existing Windows XP netbooks may miss out on some of these optimizations, future models that ship with Windows 7 pre-installed may eventually have the same or longer battery life than XP that Microsoft has promised.

"It does not trouble me that current machines have less than optimum battery life, or performance for that matter. With all the resources Windows 7 will use on a device, optimization will take a little while to complete," Gold said.

Apple's Snow Leopard: Same great UI, refinements under the hood

When it comes to Apple's next operating system, there are known knowns, known unknowns and -- well, you get the idea.

Apple is gearing up to release Mac OS X 10.6, also known as Snow Leopard, on Friday -- beating its own announced plans to ship the operating system in September. And in a break from the recent litany of whiz-bang, arresting-gizmo OS releases like Leopard and Microsoft's Windows Vista, Apple readily acknowledges that its new software will offer few new user features. Instead, it will pretty much use the existing face of Mac OS X and make all of the big changes underneath. (It's the same tack Microsoft has taken with Windows 7.)

Perhaps in an effort to quiet skeptics, Apple has been a lot more forthcoming than usual about what's coming in Snow Leopard. Buyers can reasonably expect what the company has outlined both at keynote presentations and on its Web site since announcing the new operating system last year.

What we know

Apple unveiled Snow Leopard at its Worldwide Developers Conference last year, and it released an updated beta at this year's show. Granted, those betas are for developers and testers only -- and they're covered by tight nondisclosure agreements. But that hasn't stopped leaks to Apple fan sites in recent months. Keeping the OS pretty much under wraps is a smarter move than going the public beta route, as Microsoft has done with Windows. Most of the changes in Snow Leopard involve seriously under-the-hood technologies; Apple doesn't want people judging an insufficiently tested, possibly buggy operating system in public beta form, especially one that looks no different than the one they're already using.

Good luck drumming up sales that way.

In fact, Apple last released a public beta of an operating system in 2000, when it gave users a glimpse of the very first Mac OS X. (The final, formal version debuted in March 2001.)

Eight years later, Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, is already looking ahead, stressing that "Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more [new features]." He also said that Apple "hit the Pause button on new features."

What he means is that snazzy new end-user features, such as Time Machine in Leopard (and the new Aero UI in Vista), are missing this time around. That doesn't mean Snow Leopard won't be an interesting, and perhaps vital, upgrade for many -- especially for just $29. There are a number of small tweaks that users will appreciate.

Deepest under the hood are the twin technologies of Grand Central and OpenCL। Both should be invisible to users, yet both should be able to leverage pervasive hardware changes of the last few years to make everything just a bit बेत्टर

The first, which Apple has also been referring to lately as Grand Central Dispatch, moves the responsibility of handling threads -- different program processes -- away from the application itself to the operating system. This ends up being much more efficient, allowing more things to get done concurrently, with fewer bottlenecks at the application level. In addition, the OS-level threading means the computer itself can spread the work out to all available cores; the computer knows how many processors and cores it's sporting. The end result should be smoother applications and some measure of speed.

Of course, applications will have to be updated for this. But Apple has built Grand Central-aware tools into Xcode, the company's development environment for Mac OS X. Sure, the scope of reworking software will vary for each application, but the early buzz is positive and it seems that Apple has committed to this technology going forward. This is one of those tweaks that should pay dividends long into the future.

OpenCL (Open Computing Language -- I know, how generic), in theory, parallelizes the computing environment of any Snow Leopard Mac with qualifying video cards by offloading computing-intensive tasks to a computer's graphics card. Adding them to the mix taps horsepower that was previously left unused. Apple notes that some of those cards may be "capable of over 1 teraflop -- as much [computing power] as the room-size ASCI RED supercomputer of just 12 years ago."

Fortunately, as Apple points out, developers will only need to rewrite the most intensive parts of their applications, such as data modeling or video rendering. Tools for this are also built into the new version of Xcode, and OpenCL is based on the familiar C programming language.

Those are both unseen changes. But Snow Leopard will also feature QuickTime X, a welcome modernization of Apple's venerable media wrapper technology. Not only does it have a name like a supervillain, but it sports a new minimalist interface and should be able to take advantage of GPU acceleration, capture video from cameras, stream online content better, convert media for iPod/iPhone use, and maybe offer enough editing features to eliminate the need for a $30 QuickTime Pro license.

The big news for enterprises is that Snow Leopard will include baked-in support for Microsoft Exchange (though it's only the 2007 version, so far). This is something no version of Windows has, I should add. Sysadmins rejoice.

When properly configured, this should allow Snow Leopard users to see all their corporate Exchange data -- e-mail, schedules and contacts -- in Mac OS X's Mail, iCal and Address Book। And the standard Mac OS X technologies should apply to all imported info: Spotlight can be used to find a "lost" e-mail message, and QuickLook will open it on the fly when you find it.

One thing missing in Snow Leopard: support for pre-Intel Macs. Come on, you knew it was going to happen sometime, and it's been more than three and a half years since Apple made the CPU switch. Still, I'm sad that the perfectly capable Power Mac G5 I've used for years won't be joining this bright, shining future. And I know there are many such workhorses in graphic design studios, video production houses and other businesses still happily chugging along. That's progress, I guess.

What does it mean?

There's a lot packed into Serlet's statement about Snow Leopard being a base for future development.

Certainly Grand Central and OpenCL could help bust open performance benchmarks down the road. Various developers who have talked obliquely about the changes have said that Grand Central-specific changes in Apple's Xcode have made the onerous task of programming for multiple cores much easier. That bodes well for speed bumps on current Intel-based Macs (at least, all but the earliest ones) and huge boosts on future hardware.

OpenCL's recruitment of GPUs for general computing tasks is a popular idea for both Macs and PCs; we'll see how that plays out. Perhaps this could finally give Apple the poke it needs to get state-of-the-art GPUs on Macs. (Historically, gaming has driven this, and Apple has lagged far behind the Windows world in that area.)

It's worth noting that Adobe has said that the next versions of its Creative Suite and Lightroom will be Intel-only, also. John Nack, who follows Adobe, puts it succinctly: "By the time the next version of the Suite ships, the very youngest PPC-based Macs will be roughly four years old. They're still great systems, but if you haven't upgraded your workstation in four years, you're probably not in a rush to upgrade your software, either."

As always, if every picosecond counts, you have to weigh your own cost-benefit ratio before buying Apple's latest and greatest.

And how great the latest will be remains unknown for now. A lot of implementation has to take place before performance gains appear. But it's good to see these technologies going into consumer systems, along with the developer tools for them.

Exchange support

I can't say much about what to expect in terms of Exchange support and what that could mean, since I don't use it and have never had to deal with it in an enterprise/corporate environment. It should be a boon to Mac users in Exchange-centric companies, but whether it helps Apple penetrate further into that market will depend a lot on the implementation. Macs gained built-in support for Active Directory a while back, but I know IT managers who have had serious problems with it. Then again, many IT managers have also had problems getting individual Windows boxes well integrated into their networks.

Tim Bajarin, longtime Mac analyst and president of Creative Strategies, supports the idea that this is a Big Deal for Macs in the enterprise.

"For many, especially potential enterprise users, the integration of ActiveSync and Exchange server support is going to be the most interesting [change]. Now Active Sync is part of Snow Leopard itself and delivers full synching functionality of Exchange server with all of Apple's key applications such as iCal, [Address Book] and, most importantly, Mail," he said. These two additions "will make the Mac more attractive to IT and business users at all levels and should help Apple gain some ground with the Mac in mainstream business markets.

This could be one reason why Microsoft has announced that the next version of Office for Mac, due next year, will include Outlook for Mac, replacing the Mac version of Entourage. Those hooked on Entourage, the company said, can use the Web version.

No doubt, Apple's decision to focus on stability and speed sounds better than saying, "We're fixing mistakes we made in Leopard." But a lot of these changes fall under what has long been called on certain message boards FTFF: Fix the -- ahem -- Finder. Some of the complaints historically have been technical -- why isn't Apple's crown jewel of a user interface written in its top-seeded API, Cocoa? And some have been functional -- why can't we have this feature that worked oh so well in Mac OS 9?

Apple's answer: Snow Leopard will finally have a Cocoa-based Finder. Apple intimates that this will improve responsiveness (bring more of "the snappy"); technically, this will make the Finder 64-bit-aware and enable it to take advantage of Grand Central, at least on systems with the minimum GPUs. The switch to Cocoa also brings some welcome services to the Finder, such as bidirectional text support.

Snow Leopard won't be the second coming for those who miss the halcyon days of the spatial finder. (Google those two words to get a sense of the discontent Mac OS sparked.) But it will dial back some of the less successful, we'll say, interface tweaks in recent OS revisions, and add a few that are useful: a Put Back command for the Trash; easier assignment of applications to Spaces; and navigation of folders in Stacks and the ability to scroll through their complete contents in grid view. Neither of those will replace pop-up folders, but both are welcome fixes.

A foundation for growth

Personally, I'm glad Apple put the brakes on marketing-driven feature bloat. Going in and overhauling the foundations and frameworks is a great idea -- and something Microsoft is partly doing with Windows 7 in an attempt to woo disgruntled Vista and satisfied XP users.

I'm also glad that Apple is charging a relatively nominal price. Buyers might feel stung if they had to pay $129 for what a lot of users would see as nothing more than a lot of plumbing fixes.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, of course। If Apple's goal with Snow Leopard is to lay a foundation for future growth, a lot will depend on adoption, both by users and developers. The more of each, it seems, the more benefits to all.

Desktop Utilities

WinLister v1.13 This utility displays the list of opened windows on your system. For each window, some useful information is displayed: the title, the handle of window, location, size, class name, process number, the name of the program that created the window, and more... In addition, you can easily hide, show or close the selected windows, or save the windows list to text or HTML file.

ShortcutsMan v1.01 ShortcutsMan displays the details about all shortcuts that you have on your desktop and under your start menu. Broken shortcuts (shortcuts that point to file that doesn't exist) are automatically painted with pink color. You select one or more shortcuts, and then delete them, resolve them or save the shortcut's details to HTML/Text/XML file.

FileTypesMan v1.42 FileTypesMan is an alternative to the 'File Types' tab in the 'Folder Options' of Windows. It displays the list of all file extensions and types registered on your computer. For each file type, the following information is displayed: Type Name, Description, MIME Type, Perceived Type, Flags, Browser Flags, and more. FileTypesMan also allows you to easily edit the properties and flags of each file type, as well as it allows you to add, edit, and remove actions in a file type.

MyUninstaller v1.45 MyUninstaller is an alternative utility to the standard Add/Remove applet of Windows operating system. It displays the list of all installed application, and allows you to uninstall an application, delete an uninstall entry, and save the list of all installed applications into a text file or HTML file. MyUninstaller also provides additional information for most installed applications that the standard Add/Remove applet doesn't display: product name, company, version, uninstall string, installation folder and more.

OpenWithView v1.02 OpenWithView is a small utility that displays the list of all available applications in the 'Open With' dialog-box of Windows, and allows you to easily disable/enable the applications in the list. When application is disabled, it won't be displayed in the 'Other Programs' section of the 'Open With' dialog-box. This utility can be useful if your 'Open With' window displays too much applications, and you want to remove the applications that you don't use frequently.

SpecialFoldersView v1.11Windows operating system have dozens of special folders that are used for storing application settings and files, storing Internet files, saving temporary files, storing shortcuts to other files, and so on. This utility displays the list of all special folders in your system, and allows you to easily jump to the right folder simply by double-clicking the folder item. You can also save the list of all folder paths into text/html/xml file.

InsideClipboard v1.10 Each time that you copy something into the clipboard for pasting it into another application, the copied data is saved into multiple formats. The main clipboard application of Windows only display the basic clipboard formats, like text and bitmaps, but doesn't display the list of all formats that are stored in the clipboard. InsideClipboard is a small utility that displays the binary content of all formats that are currently stored in the clipboard, and allow you to save the content of specific format into a binary file.

Clipboardic v1.10 Clipboardic is a small utility that listen to the clipboard activity, and each time that you copy something into the clipboard, it automatically save the copied data into Windows clipboard file (.clp). Later, when you need the copied data again, you can simply select the right clipboard file, and Clipboardic will automatically insert it into the clipboard. Clipboardic also allows you to easily share the clipboard data between multiple computers on your local network.

NirExt v1.01 NirExt utility adds 3 useful context menu extensions to your Windows Explorer environment: Folder Properties: This option is available in the context menu when you right-click on a folder in your file system. It allows you change the icon of any folder you want, and change the text that appears when the mouse cursor moves over the folder. Advanced Run: This option is available in the context menu when you right-click on an executable file (*.EXE). It allows you to instantly run an application with command-line and some other options. Create Shortcut+: This option is available in the context menu when you right-click on any file in your system. It allows you to instantly create a shortcut and drop it into one of the following folders: Desktop, Start Menu, Programs folder under Start Menu, Common Desktop (for all users), Common Start Menu (for all users), and Common Programs folder (for all users) under Start Menu.

Command-Line Utilities

NirCmd v2.37 NirCmd is a small command-line utility that allows you to do some useful tasks without displaying any user interface. By running NirCmd with simple command-line option, you can write and delete values and keys in the Registry, write values into INI file, dial to your internet account or connect to a VPN network, restart windows or shut down the computer, create shortcut to a file, change the created/modified date of a file, change your display settings, and more...

WirelessNetConsole v1.00 WirelessNetConsole is a small console application that dumps all current detected wireless networks information into the standard output. For each wireless network, the following information is displayed: SSID, Signal Quality in %, PHY types, RSSI, MAC Address, Channel Frequency, and more.

BluetoothCL v1.00 BluetoothCL is a small console application that dumps all current detected bluetooth devices into the standard output. For each Bluetooth device, the following information is displayed: MAC Address, Name, Major Device Type, Minor Device Type, and optionally the company name of the device (if external file of MAC addresses - oui.txt is provided)

AtNow v1.1 AtNow is a command-line utility that schedules programs and commands to run in the near future. Visual C++ Source code is included.

GoogRankCmd v1.01 GoogRankCmd is a simple command-line utility that retrieves and displays the Google's PageRank of a Web page ,without using Google Toolbar or any other browser plugin.

WhosIP v1.02 WhosIP is a simple command-line utility that allows you to easily find all available information about an IP address: The owner of the IP address, the country/state name, IP addresses range, contact information (address, phone, fax, and email), and more.

WhoisCL v1.34 WhoisCL is a simple command-line utility that allows you to easily get information about a registered domain. It automatically connect to the right WHOIS server, according to the top-level domain name, and retrieve the WHOIS record of the domain. It supports both generic domains and country code domains.

SNRemove v1.00 This utility removes the reference to strong name signature from .NET exe and dll files. After removing the strong name reference, you can make any change you want in dll/exe file, without getting any exception or error message.

DumpEDID v1.01 DumpEDID is a small console application that extract the EDID ("Extended display identification data") records from your computer, analyze it, and dump it into the console window. EDID record provide essential information about your monitor: manufacture week/year, monitor manufacturer, monitor model, supported display modes, and so on... You can also get the EDID records of a remote computer, if you login to this computer with administrator rights. (DumpEDID is the console version of MonitorInfoView utility)

Video/Audio Related Utilities

VideoCacheView v1.50 After watching a video in a Web site, you may want to save the video file into your local disk for playing it offline in the future. If the video file is stored in your browser's cache, this utility can help you to extract the video file from the cache and save it for watching it in the future. It automatically scans the entire cache of Internet Explorer and Mozilla-based Web browsers (Including Firefox) and finds all video files that are currently stored in it. It allows you to easily copy the cached video files into another folder for playing/watching them in the future. If you have a movie player that is configured to play flv files, it also allows you to play the video directly from your browser's cache.

WebVideoCap v1.37 While watching a video in a Web site, you may sometimes want to save the video into your local drive, and then play it offline later. This utility allows you to capture .flv (Flash Video) files and RTSP streams while the Web browser download and play them inside a Web page. After the entire video file is downloaded and played by the Web browser, the video file is saved in the folder that you selected, and you can play it offline later with any Video player. WebVideoCap can capture the video files of most popular video-sharing sites, including YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, iFilm, Metacafe, Putfile, and more...

Volumouse v1.72 Volumouse provides you a quick and easy way to control the sound volume on your system - simply by rolling the wheel of your wheel mouse. It allows you to define a set of rules for determining when the wheel will be used for changing the sound volume. For example: You can configure Volumouse to use your mouse wheel for volume control when the Alt key is hold down, when the left mouse button is down, when the mouse cursor is over the taskbar, and so on... When the conditions that you define are not satisfied, your mouse wheel will be used for the regular scrolling tasks, exactly as before.

InstalledCodec v1.06 InstalledCodec is a small utility displays the list of all Codec drivers and DirectShow filters currently installed on your system. For each component the following information is displayed: Display Name, Type, Disabled Status, Installed/Modified Time, Description, Company Name, Filename, and more... It allows you to easily disable or enable any Codec/DirectShow component or export the list into text/xml/html file.

Web Browser Tools

IECookiesView v1.74 This utility displays the details of all cookies that Internet Explorer stores on your computer. In addition, it allows you to change the content of the cookies, delete unwanted cookies files, save the cookies into a readable text file, find cookies by specifying the domain name, view the cookies of other users and in other computers, and more... Read More >>

IECacheView v1.30 - Internet Explorer Cache Viewer IECacheView is a small utility that reads the cache folder of Internet Explorer, and displays the list of all files currently stored in the cache. For each cache file, the following information is displayed: Filename, Content Type, URL, Last Accessed Time, Last Modified Time, Expiration Time, Number Of Hits, File Size, Folder Name, and full path of the cache filename. You can easily save the cache information into text/html/xml file, or copy the cache table to the clipboard and then paste it to another application, like Excel or OpenOffice Spreadsheet.

IEHistoryView v1.40 This utility reads all information from the history file on your computer, and displays the list of all URLs that you have visited with Internet Explorer browser in the last few days. It also allows you to select one or more URL addresses, and then remove them from the history file or save them into text, HTML or XML file. In addition, you are allowed to view the visited URL list of other user profiles on your computer, and even access the visited URL list on a remote computer, as long as you have permission to access the history folder.

MozillaCookiesView v1.26 MozillaCookiesView is an alternative to the standard 'Cookie Manager' provided by Netscape and Mozilla browsers. It displays the details of all cookies stored inside the cookies file (cookies.txt) in one table, and allows you to save the cookies list into text, HTML or XML file, delete unwanted cookies, and backup/restore the cookies file.

MozillaHistoryView v1.18 MozillaHistoryView is a small utility that reads the history data file (history.dat) of Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape Web browsers, and displays the list of all visited Web pages in the last days. For each visited Web page, the following information is displayed: URL, First visit date, Last visit date, Visit counter, Referrer, Title, and Host name. You can also easily export the history data to text/HTML/Xml file.

MozillaCacheView v1.25 MozillaCacheView is a small utility that reads the cache folder of Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape Web browsers, and displays the list of all files currently stored in the cache. For each cache file, the following information is displayed: URL, Content type, File size, Last modified time, Last fetched time, Expiration time, Fetch count, Server name, and more. You can easily select one or more items from the cache list, and then extract the files to another folder, or copy the URLs list to the clipboard.

OperaCacheView v1.30 OperaCacheView is a small utility that reads the cache folder of Opera Web browser, and displays the list of all files currently stored in the cache. For each cache file, the following information is displayed: URL, Content type, File size, Last accessed time, and last modified time in the server. You can easily select one or more items from the cache list, and then extract the files to another folder, or copy the URLs list to the clipboard.

ChromeCacheView v1.20 ChromeCacheView is a small utility that reads the cache folder of Google Chrome Web browser, and displays the list of all files currently stored in the cache. For each cache file, the following information is displayed: URL, Content type, File size, Last accessed time, Expiration time, Server name, Server response, and more. You can easily select one or more items from the cache list, and then extract the files to another folder, or copy the URLs list to the clipboard.

MyLastSearch v1.41 MyLastSearch utility scans the cache and history files of your Web browser, and locate all search queries that you made with the most popular search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN). The search queries that you made are displayed in a table with the following columns: Search Text, Search Engine, Search Time, Web Browser, and the search URL.

IEDesignMode v1.00 IEDesignMode Adds a new menu item into the context menu of Internet Explorer that allows you to easily switch the active Internet Explorer window to design mode. When a Web page in in design mode, you can change the location of images and other objects, change the current text, paste a new text into the Web page, and so on. After you made your changes, you can easily switch back to non-design mode and/or save the modified Web page to HTML file.

FavoritesView v1.25 FavoritesView displays the list of all your Favorties (of Internet Explorer browser) and bookmarks (of Netscape/Mozilla browsers) in a single page. Each line in the list specifies the title of the item, the URL address, the created/modified date of the bookmark item, and the folder name. You select one or more of these bookmarks, and then copy them to the clipboard, delete them (Only for Internet Explorer Favorites), export them to tab-delimited text file, HTML file, or XML file. FavoritesView also allows you to locate duplicate URL addresses in your Favorites/Bookmarks or find specific item by specifying the URL or the title.

ActiveX Compatibility Manager v1.00 This utility allows you to easily disable/enable ActiveX components on Internet Explorer browser.

Network Monitoring Tools

SmartSniff v1.50 SmartSniff allows you to capture TCP/IP packets that pass through your network adapter, and view the captured data as sequence of conversations between clients and servers. You can view the TCP/IP conversations in Ascii mode (for text-based protocols, like HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and FTP.) or as hex dump. (for non-text base protocols, like DNS)

SniffPass v1.07 - Password Sniffer SniffPass is small utility that listens to your network, capture the passwords that pass through your network adapter, and display them on the screen instantly. SniffPass can capture the passwords of the following Protocols: POP3, IMAP4, SMTP, FTP, and HTTP (basic authentication passwords). You can use this utility to recover lost Web/FTP/Email passwords.

SocketSniff v1.06 SocketSniff allows you to watch the Windows Sockets (WinSock) activity of the selected process. For each created socket, the following information is displayed: socket handle, socket type, local and remote addresses, local and remote ports, total number of send/receive bytes, and more. You can also watch the content of each send or receive call, in Ascii mode or as Hex Dump.

CurrPorts v1.66 CurrPorts displays the list of all currently opened TCP/IP and UDP ports on your local computer. For each port in the list, information about the process that opened the port is also displayed, including the process name, full path of the process, version information of the process (product name, file description, and so on), the time that the process was created, and the user that created it. In addition, CurrPorts allows you to close unwanted TCP connections, kill the process that opened the ports, and save the TCP/UDP ports information to HTML file , XML file, or to tab-delimited text file. CurrPorts also automatically mark with pink color suspicious TCP/UDP ports owned by unidentified applications (Applications without version information and icons)

AdapterWatch v1.05 AdapterWatch displays useful information about your network adapters: IP addresses, Hardware address, WINS servers, DNS servers, MTU value, Number of bytes received or sent, The current transfer speed, and more. In addition, it displays general TCP/IP/UDP/ICMP statistics for your local computer.

NetResView v1.16 NetResView is a small utility that displays the list of all network resources (computers, disk shares, and printer shares) on your LAN. As opposed to "My Network Places" module of Windows, NetResView display all network resources from all domains/workgroups in one screen, and including admin/hidden shares.

PingInfoView v1.25 PingInfoView is a small utility that allows you to easily ping multiple host names and IP addresses, and watch the result in one table. It automatically ping to all hosts every number of seconds that you specify, and displays the number of succeed and failed pings, as well as the average ping time. You can also save the ping result into text/html/xml file, or copy it to the clipboard.

Password Recovery Utilities

MessenPass v1.26 - Instant Messenger Password Recovery MessenPass is a password recovery tool that reveals the passwords of the following instant messenger applications: MSN Messenger, Windows Messenger (In Windows XP), Windows Live Messenger (In Windows XP And Vista), Yahoo Messenger (Version 5.x/6.x), ICQ Lite 4.x/5.x/2003, AOL Instant Messenger, AIM 6.x, AIM Pro, Trillian, Miranda, and GAIM.

Asterisk Logger v1.04 Automatically reveals the passwords stored behind the asterisks ('***') in standard password text-boxes of Windows.

Dialupass v3.01 - Dialup Password Recovery This utility enumerates all dialup/VPN entries on your computers, and displays their logon details: User Name, Password, and Domain. You can use it to recover a lost password of your Internet connection or VPN. Dialupass also allows you to save the dialup/VPN list into text/html/csv/xml file, or copy it to the clipboard.

Protected Storage PassView v1.63 This utility reveals the passwords stored on your computer by Internet Explorer, Outlook Express and POP3 accounts of MS-Outlook. The passwords are revealed by reading the information from the Protected Storage.

IE PassView v1.16 IE PassView is a small utility that reveals the passwords stored by Internet Explorer browser. It supports the new Internet Explorer 7.0/8.0, as well as older versions of Internet explorer, v4.0 - v6.0

PasswordFox v1.11 PasswordFox is a small password recovery tool that allows you to view the user names and passwords stored by Mozilla Firefox Web browser. By default, PasswordFox displays the passwords stored in your current profile, but you can easily select to watch the passwords of any other Firefox profile. For each password entry, the following information is displayed: Record Index, Web Site, User Name, Password, User Name Field, Password Field, and the Signons filename.

ChromePass v1.05 ChromePass is a small password recovery tool that allows you to view the user names and passwords stored by Google Chrome Web browser. For each password entry, the following information is displayed: Origin URL, Action URL, User Name Field, Password Field, User Name, Password, and Created Time. You can select one or more items and then save them into text/html/xml file or copy them to the clipboard.

Network Password Recovery v1.20 When you connect to a network share on your LAN or to your .NET Passport/Messenger account, Windows XP/Vista allows you to save your password in order to use it in each time that you connect the remote server. This utility recovers all network passwords stored on your system for the current logged-on user.

AsterWin IE v1.03 This utility reveals the passwords stored behind the asterisks in the web pages of Internet Explorer 5.0 and above. You can use it for recovering a lost web site password, if it's stored on your computer. It was developed in Visual Basic environment and requires the Visual Basic Runtime library. Source code is included !

Mail PassView v1.51 - Email Password Recovery Recovers the passwords and other email accounts information of the following email applications: Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook 2000 (POP3/SMTP Accounts only), Microsoft Outlook 2002/2003/2007, Windows Mail, IncrediMail, Eudora, Netscape Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Group Mail Free, and Web-based email accounts.

PstPassword v1.12 PstPassword is a small utility that recover lost password of Outlook .PST (Personal Folders) file.

WirelessKeyView v1.27 WirelessKeyView recovers all wireless network keys (WEP/WPA) stored in your computer by the 'Wireless Zero Configuration' service of Windows XP and by the 'WLAN AutoConfig' service of Windows Vista. It allows you to easily save all keys to text/html/xml file, or copy a single key to the clipboard.

Remote Desktop PassView v1.01 Remote Desktop PassView is a small utility that reveals the password stored by Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection utility inside .rdp files.

LSASecretsView v1.20 LSASecretsView is a small utility that displays the list of all LSA secrets stored in the Registry on your computer. The LSA secrets key is located under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Security\Policy\Secrets and may contain your RAS/VPN passwords, Autologon password, and other system passwords/keys.

LSASecretsDump v1.20 LSASecretsDump is a small console application that extract the LSA secrets from the Registry, decrypt them, and dump them into the console window. The LSA secrets key is located under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Security\Policy\Secrets and may contain your RAS/VPN passwords, Autologon password, and other system passwords/keys. This utility is the console version of LSASecretsView.

PCAnywhere PassView v1.11 Reveals the passwords stored in PCAnywhere items. Both login information and the protection passwords are revealed instantly.

Access PassView v1.12 This utility reveals the database password of every password-protected mdb file that created with Microsoft Access 95/97/2000/XP or with Jet Database Engine 3.0/4.0 It can be very useful if you forgot your Access Database password and you want to recover it.

Win9x PassView v1.1 The Win9x PassView utility reveals the passwords stored on your computer by Windows 95/98 operating system.

Content Advisor Password Remover v1.01 Removes the Content Advisor password in Internet Explorer (versions 4.x and above). Visual C++ Source code is included.

Enterprise Manager PassView v1.00 Reveals the passwords that SQL Server Enterprise Manager stores on your computer.

AsterWin v1.20 This utility reveals the passwords stored behind the asterisks in standard password text-boxes. It supports the following operating systems: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

VNCPassView v1.02 VNCPassView is a small utility that recover the passwords stored by the VNC tool. It can recover 2 of passwords: password stored for the current logged-on user (HKEY_CURRENT_USER in the Registry), and password stored for the all users.

Lawson Software sued over alleged ERP failure

A California nonprofit is suing Lawson Software for more than US$1 million over an allegedly failed ERP (enterprise resource planning) implementation, according to documents filed last month in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Public Health Foundation Enterprises, which provides support and infrastructure services to nonprofits, community groups and governments, began looking for a replacement for its existing financial, human resources and other applications in 2006, mainly because of a lack of integration between the components, according to its complaint.

As part of its search, the Los Angeles organization hired a consulting firm and had various PHFE departments develop an accounting of their functional requirements and business processes. This resulted in a request for proposals that was sent to Lawson, Microsoft, SAP and other vendors, according to the complaint.

PHFE eventually selected Lawson and signed a deal for more than $1.08 million in August 2007 to take advantage of an offered discount, according to the complaint.

However, "from the inception of the agreement, there were problems with Lawson's ability to provide the integrated program and customer service," the complaint states. "Lawson ... did not have and was not able to dedicate resources to the project, resulting in an immediate delay."

In addition, "Lawson did not have installers available to load the software on PHFE's equipment," which was needed in order to start training staff, the complaint states.

"Incredulously, Lawson's 'customer service' solution was to permit PHFE to train their staff using Lawson's logins and their servers at a cost of approximately $4,500 a day."

Lawson eventually agreed to waive the fees and training began in October 2007, but PHFE subsequently ran into problems with the consultant Lawson provided, according to the complaint.

"It became immediately clear that [the consultant] did not possess the knowledge necessary to answer PHFE's questions. ... when PHFE's implementation team members would ask questions about basic functions of the system or how PHFE should handle certain situations, [the consultant] was unable to provide a response."

The consultant repeatedly referred back to Lawson for the appropriate answers, further delaying the project, according to the complaint. Similar problems occurred with a number of "Core" consultants from Lawson, the complaint states.

In November 2007, PHFE began training human resources workers on the system, but this effort stumbled, because the consultant Lawson initially assigned did not know how to properly configure the system to meet state guidelines, according to the complaint। PHFE's HR department was subsequently "shuffled around" to three other consultants and Lawson did not provide a permanent consultant to them until January 2008, according to the complaint.

Lawson was also supposed to "provide PHFE with an 'A to Z' demonstration of how the entire system would work together during System Test, which commenced in March 2008," the complaint states. Technical problems arose and the system test was never completed.

"As a result, PHFE has spent more than $1,000,000 on various programs, rather than one integrated program as promised, that do not work," the complaint adds.

PHFE is now using its previous system to run operations, according to the complaint.

A Lawson spokesman said the company does not comment on pending litigation, but added that it is "committed to working with [its] customers to resolve issues."

One observer said IT buyers can draw an overarching lesson from the dispute.

"It wouldn't be fair to place blame in this situation, without hearing Lawson's side of the story," said Frank Scavo, managing partner of Strativa, an IT and business consulting firm in Irvine, California, via e-mail. "However, from a quick reading of the complaint, it appears that PHFE went for a quick sale to take advantage of some sort of discount that Lawson was offering and then desired a quick start to the project. I'm guessing this led to resource conflicts with the most experienced Lawson consultants. In my experience, the best consultants for any vendor are booked out weeks or months in advance."

Buyers should make sure to "do due diligence not only on the vendor's software but on the consulting organization that will be delivering services, whether the vendor's own consultants or a third-party. Interview the proposed project manager and key consulting staff," Scavo added. "Interview them and get a commitment that those individuals will be assigned to the project."