Author: Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

Get this site delivered via e-mail

For the past few weeks, I’ve been testing a relatively new service called Bloglet, which allows you to “subscribe” to this site and have daily updates delivered via e-mail. Personally, I prefer using an RSS reader, but some visitors to this site have made it clear they aren’t into RSS, so this is an alternative. It seems to work well enough, and I’m now ready for a wider test of the service. If you want to give it a try, sign up and let me know what you think.

Enter your email address below to subscribe to Ed Bott’s Windows (and Office) Expertise!

powered by Bloglet

Microsoft to buy Claria?

From the New York Times comes a report that Microsoft is negotiating to buy Claria:

For the last two weeks, Microsoft has been in talks to buy a private Silicon Valley company, a move that underscores just how eager Microsoft is to catch up with Google, the search and advertising giant.

The company that Microsoft has pursued is controversial: Claria, an adware marketer formerly called Gator, and best known for its pop-up ads and software that tracks people visiting Web sites. The Gator adware has frequently been denounced by privacy advocates for its intrusiveness.

The offer price on the table as recently as yesterday was $500 million, according to people who have been briefed on the talks. But a person close to Microsoft said last night that the negotiations were on the verge of breaking off.

One person briefed on the deal said there was opposition within Microsoft to the acquisition.

Yikes. If you want to read more about this company, go to the Gator Information Center, run by my friends at PC Pitstop:

PC Pitstop believes that Gator products can degrade the quality of a user’s PC experience, and the applications themselves are not a good value. This belief is based on our hands-on use of Gator products, surveys of users that have Gator on their systems, and visitor feedback from our forums. Most Gator “users” are not aware of what Gator is doing on their PC behind the scenes, and even many advertisers are not aware their ads are being shown by Gator’s ad network through third-party contracts or Gator’s connection with Overture.

What is Microsoft thinking? This deal would be a P.R. disaster. The only way it makes sense is if Microsoft buys the company, fires everyone involved with it, has their buildings exorcised, and rewrites every line of code in their product.

Update: The deal’s dead. But it was still a stupid idea. Really, really stupid.

Why does Comcast need my Social Security number?

We’re moving in a few weeks, into a neighborhood where Comcast provides cable and Internet service. The good news is they have high-speed access and high-definition DVR service. The bad news is that Comcast insists I have to give them my Social Security number before they’ll start my service.

The sales rep says the company doesn’t run a credit check or actually do anything with the information. Instead, they use it as an identity check so that a third party can’t make changes to my service.

Are they insane? Identity theft is a real problem, and the Social Security Administration cautions, “You should be careful about sharing your number with anyone who asks for it (even when you are provided with a benefit or service).” They specifically caution against companies like Comcast doing this:

If a business or other enterprise asks you for your SSN, you can refuse to give it. However, that may mean doing without the purchase or service for which your number was requested. For example, utility companies and other services ask for a Social Security number, but do not need it; they can do a credit check or identify the person in their records by alternative means.

Giving your number is voluntary, even when you are asked for the number directly. If requested, you should ask why your number is needed, how your number will be used, what law requires you to give your number and what the consequences are if you refuse. The answers to these questions can help you decide if you want to give your Social Security number. The decision is yours.

The rep I talked to said it’s “policy.” No, I can’t talk to a supervisor, but he’ll have someone call me back. We’ll see what happens.

TiVo hires the world’s worst CEO

Reuters reports:

TiVo Inc. on Monday said it named media veteran Tom Rogers as its chief executive, effective July 1, succeeding Michael Ramsay, who had previously announced his plan to step down as CEO of the television recording technology company.

Ugh. See my report from earlier this year on Tom Rogers’ dismal track record. I don’t think TiVo could possibly have picked someone less competent to lead them through a hostile competitive landscape.

More details about RSS in Longhorn

Microsoft has a new home page for RSS in Longhorn. Here’s a reasonably simplified explanation of RSS Support in Longhorn. The specification itself is here.

This license information appears at the bottom of the specification page:

Microsoft’s copyrights in this specification are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (version 2.5).  To view a copy of this license, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/.   As to software implementations, Microsoft is not aware of any patent claims it owns or controls that would be necessarily infringed by a software implementation that conforms to the specification’s extensions. If Microsoft later becomes aware of any such necessary patent claims, Microsoft also agrees to offer a royalty-free patent license on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions to any such patent claims for the purpose of publishing and consuming the extensions set out in the specification.

Dean Hachamovich has some comments here.

Oh, and those who were wondering whether XML support in Office 12 will be a big deal can now put their skepticism to rest. Yes, this will have huge implications for Office 12, and I think you can safely assume that the ability to create and consume RSS will be a big part of the next version of Office.

More on Microsoft and RSS

Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Monitor has a series of three posts on Microsoft’s RSS Platform. (Part 2 is here and Part 3 is here.) They’re well worth reading, with some interesting insights and a nice historical overview. It’s too bad the first post in the series starts with a big mistake:

Microsoft will introduce proprietary tags to RSS, which it will make available under a Creative Commons license.

Proprietary means the format is owned by one company, and if anyone wants to use it they have to pay a royalty, or reverse-engineer it, or reinvent the wheel. These extensions are being released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, whose terms read:

You are free:

  • to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
  • to make derivative works
  • to make commercial use of the work

The extensions Microsoft announced today are not “proprietary.” Exactly the opposite, in fact.

Wow! Microsoft releases new RSS standards under a Creative Commons license

I’m listening to the live stream of Dean Hachamovitch’s keynote at Gnomedex, where Larry Lessig just gave a public thank you to Microsoft for its decision to make its new list extension to the RSS standard available under a Creative Commons license. For those who don’t remember, Lessig was the special master appointed by Judge Jackson in the Microsoft antitrust trial. For him to give a shout-out to the folks in Redmond is a very big deal.

The press release has some details:

Microsoft Corp. today announced support for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) in the next version of the Microsoft® Windows® operating system, code-named “Longhorn.” The RSS functionality in “Longhorn” is being designed to make it simple for end users to discover, view and subscribe to RSS feeds, as well as make it easier for developers to incorporate the rich capabilities of RSS into their applications. In addition, Microsoft announced Simple List Extensions, a set of extensions to RSS that can be used to enable Web sites to publish lists such as of photo albums, music playlists and top 10 lists as RSS feeds. Microsoft is making the specification freely available via the Creative Commons license, the same license under which the RSS 2.0 specification was released. …

The RSS support in the “Longhorn” platform includes the following:

  • Common RSS Feed List. This core feature of Windows maintains a common list of the user’s subscriptions across all applications. This allows the user to subscribe to a feed once and have all RSS-enabled applications able to access the common list to view the subscriptions.
  • Common RSS Data Store. A common data store will provide a single location where applications can access content that has been downloaded to the PC via RSS, including text, pictures, audio, calendar events, documents and just about anything else. All applications will have access to this content for creating rich user experiences.
  • RSS Platform Sync Engine. The sync engine will automatically download data and enclosures for use by any application. The engine is designed for efficiency, using idle network bandwidth whenever possible to limit the effect on the user’s Internet experience. Developers can use the platform to get RSS data without having to manage details such as synchronization schedules or subscriptions.

What does all this mean? The unexciting opportunity is for publishers to deliver more Top 10 lists that can be updated regularly in an RSS-enabled client. The more exciting opportunity is that you can build your own list – your favorite restaurants, photos, performers, writers, technology analysts. Using RSS, you can have those lists updated automatically and share them with other people.

Exciting.

Channel 9 video with first public demo of IE7 is here.

Tip of the day: Change your picture on the Welcome screen and Start menu

Look at the top of the Start menu in Windows XP. See the picture to the left of your user name? It was assigned by default when you set up your user account. (You won’t see a picture here if you use the Classic Start menu instead of the Windows XP-style Start menu or if you’re attached to a Windows domain.)

Start_menu_photo

That same picture appears on the Welcome screen, where you log on to your user account. You probably have a frog, or a rubber duck, or a palm tree or a cat as your picture. But did you know you can change this picture? Did you know you’re not stuck with the lame set of sample images that come with Windows XP? Here’s how to personalize the image attached to your logon.

To change the picture used for your account, click Start, and then click the picture at the top of the Start menu. (This shortcut opens the User Accounts Control Panel and is a good one to remember; if you wanted to change something else about your account, you could click the Back button to see other settings.)

User_acct_photo

Click Browse for more pictures and find an image file you’d like to attach to your account. When you click Open, Windows copies your image to the folder where it stores user photos: %allusersprofile%\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures. The original image remains intact and unchanged. The copy is resized so that it is 48 pixels wide or high, and saved in Bitmap format, using your user name as the file name. I recommend that you start with a square image; if you use a rectangular image, the width or height will be reduced to maintain the image proportions.

This is not the Windows AntiSpyware Beta you’re looking for

A new version of the Windows AntiSpyware Beta is now available for download. This isn’t the long-awaited Beta 2, but instead is a refresh of Beta 1:

In this second beta refresh (Build 1.0.613), we’ve made other enhancements to the detection and removal capabilities, including improved Winsock LSP removal capabilities and support for long descriptions of categorized software. In addition, we have also extended the Windows AntiSpyware beta expiration date to December 31, 2005. 

Mary Jo Foley at Microsoft Watch quotes a Microsoft executive as saying Beta 2 will be released “some time later this year.” If you already have Microsoft AntiSpyware installed, it should update itself. If you are thinking about trying it out, this is the one to download.

Update: More details about changes in this version are available at Steve Dodson’s Weblog.