Cody Taylor

An anonymous reader writes “Microsoft, inspired perhaps by the ease of selecting and installing iPhone apps, has taken a similar approach to gather back market share of its IIS web server in a predominantly Apache/PHP market. 10 open source CMS, gallery, wiki, and blog tools were chosen to populate the eco-system, dubbed Web App Gallery. Developers must agree to principles and can now submit their PHP or .NET application for inclusion. Once an application is in the gallery, Windows users use Microsoft Web Platform Installer, released in a keynote at MIX this week, which inspects the the local system, and installs and configures dependencies like the IIS webserver, PHP, URL re-writers, and file permissions. Screenshots show this to be quite easy for the typical computer user. This could provide some real competition for WAMP and Linux shell install processes.”

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Slatterz writes “A decade ago people were talking about the death of distance, and how the internet would make physical geography irrelevant. This has not come to pass; there are still places around the world that are hubs of technology just as there are for air travel, product manufacturing or natural resource exploitation. This list of the ten best IT centres of excellence includes some interesting trivia about Station X during the Second World War, why Romania is teeming with software developers, Silicon Valley, Fort Meade Maryland, and Zhongguancun in China, where Microsoft is building its Chinese headquarters.”

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Houston 2600 sends this excerpt from the Register about an open-source security assessment tool Microsoft presented at CanSecWest: “Microsoft on Friday released an open-source program designed to streamline the labor-intensive process of identifying security vulnerabilities in software while it’s still under development. As its name suggests, !exploitable Crash Analyzer (pronounced ‘bang exploitable crash analyzer’) combs through bugs that cause a program to seize up, and assesses the likelihood of them being exploited by attackers. Dan Kaminsky, a well-known security expert who also provides consulting services to Microsoft, hailed the release a ‘game changer’ because it provides a reliable way for developers to sort through thousands of bugs to identify the several dozen that pose the greatest risk.”

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Arnie87 writes “One Microsoft Way has an interesting article suggesting that the reason Microsoft is focusing so much on speed with Windows 7 is the whopping sales of netbooks. The article concludes by saying: ‘If you plan on adopting Windows 7, you have the netbook to be thankful for, because Vista’s successor would be a very different beast if Microsoft had less motivation to pursue performance.'”

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theodp writes “Speaking at a conference in NYC, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer did his best to refan the flames of the Mac vs. PC rivalry: ‘Now I think the tide has really turned back the other direction [against Apple],’ Ballmer said. ‘The economy is helpful. Paying an extra 0 for a computer in this environment — same piece of hardware — paying 0 more to get a logo on it? I think that’s a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be.'”

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bugnuts writes “Blizzard has announced a policy change regarding add-ons for the popular game World of Warcraft which asserts requirements on UI programmers, such as disallowing charging for the program, obfuscation, or soliciting donations. Add-ons are voluntarily-installed UI programs that add functionality to the game, programmed in Lua, which can do various tasks that hook into the WoW engine. The new policy has some obvious requirements, such as not loading the servers or spamming users, and it looks like an attempt to make things more accessible and free for the end user. But unlike FOSS, it adds other requirements that assert control over these independently coded programs, such as distribution and fees. Blizzard can already control the ultimate functionality of add-ons by changing the hooks into the WoW engine. They have exercised this ability in the past, e.g. to disable add-ons that automate movement and facilitate ‘one-button’ combat. Should they be able to make demands on independent programmers’ copyrighted works, such as forbidding download fees or advertising, when those programmers are not under contract to code for Blizzard? Is this like Microsoft asserting control over what programmers may code for Windows?”

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tlhIngan writes “Since October 1, 2008, Sony has been billing game publishers for DLC bandwidth usage. The game companies are forced to pay 16 cents per gigabyte downloaded by users (the ‘Playstation Network Fee’) regardless of whether the content is free or paid. The good news is that free content will only be billed during the initial 60 days it’s up, but paid content will require fees forever. (No word on whether free content will mysteriously disappear after 60 days, though.) Given that some popular game demos run over a gigabyte by themselves, it could easily start costing publishers serious money (16 cents each for a few million downloads adds up). So far, it hasn’t cut down the content available (or few publishers have started pulling content), but it’s too soon to tell. It should be noted that Microsoft isn’t charging publishers any money for content on Xbox Live, though some may argue that the ‘gold premium content’ is the same thing.” Perhaps this is one of the reasons various publishers are pressuring Sony for a PS3 price cut.

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“TomTom has responded to Microsoft’s patent suit by filing a patent claim of its own against the software maker”

An anonymous reader notes that a legislator in Texas has introduced a bill to require open document formats in all state government business. The bill is carefully worded such that only ODF could pass its test as “open.” The story is covered by the Fort Worth Star Telegram, which is careful to be even-handed, giving Microsoft’s spokesman equal time. A ZDNet’s blogger notes that the bill, introduced by a Democrat in a state whose politics is dominated by Republicans, faces chances that “…fall somewhere east of slim and west of none.”

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CWmike writes “GPS device maker TomTom has shot back at Microsoft with a claim of patent infringement, after the software giant raised concerns in the Linux community with a recent lawsuit against TomTom. In a suit filed earlier this week, TomTom alleges that Microsoft infringes on four patents in mapping software Microsoft Streets and Trips. TomTom is asking for triple damages for willful infringement, since it says it had notified Microsoft about its alleged infringement. Microsoft said it was reviewing TomTom’s filing and that it remains committed to a licensing solution and has been for more than a year.”

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