New Technologies Showcase IT's Importance

IT managers can make a difference as they adopt new IT management and provisioning technologies. There's much to get right -- or get wrong.

NEW YORK -- Gartner's cloud expert and infrastructure guru Thomas Bittman said that IT departments' use of cloud and virtualization technologies will enable their companies to succeed or fail.

"IT is a differentiator. IT does matter," he said in a presentation at the Wall Street Tech Association's seminar "Cost Effective IT-The Power of Virtualization." Bittman's theme played off that of Nicholas Carr's book Does IT Matter? which claimed that IT expertise is a commodity that will not determine a company's success or failure.

Bittman said that there's one bottom line metric that IT organizations can use as a self-assessment: What percentage of the budget is spent on maintaining existing infrastructure versus spending on new projects. He said that he had talked to one organization that was spending 80 percent of the entire IT budget just to stay in the place. The norm, he said, is closer to 60 percent, and such organizations have room to innovate and can eventually reach 40 percent.

Although companies can get better, the laggards risk falling behind in a permanent way. "The gap between the well managed and the badly managed is growing," he said.

Gartner has a more complex self-assessment tool called the Infrastructure Opportunities Maturity Model, or IOMM, that Bittman said Microsoft has adopted.

The virtualization factor

Infrastructure maturity starts with virtualization. Bittman said that although only about 15 percent of servers are virtualized now, he expects that to grow to over half by 2012. This change will certainly affect the virtualization market. "It will change from one vendor in 2008" he said, undoubtedly referring to market leader VMware), "to a competitive market with one vendor that had a very good foot in the door," he said.

However, he admitted, some business managers resist the idea of virtualization. Bittman said he knows of at least one case of a company that has implemented virtualization but pretends to the line of business managers that their applications still reside on one server. "They implemented virtualization without telling their customers. They left the stickers on the servers and did not tell the line of business," he said.

Virtualization certainly makes some things more complex. For example, it breaks software licensing. Bittman warned that some companies will tout virtualization-friendly licensing but that IT managers should avoid these new pricing models as they are likely to cost more. "You cannot price software based on the power of the box it runs on if that software is flying around the datacenter," he said.

Anyone who subscribes to these new pricing models will be subject to the whims of software providers who do not yet know how to price in the new market and are offering the models as an experiment. "Be a scientist, not a subject," he said.

The adoption of virtualization will also hurt hardware sales at first. But as organizations finally begin to fully utilize the servers they have, it will eventually drive demand in the x86 server market to heights unseen before, he said.

That's because virtualization produces greater demand for servers from businesses. In fact, server demand rises so fast that IT administrators will need to keep a very close eye on usage and will need to understand costs.

He said that IT administrators should try to bill the lines of businesses for the costs of services used, but acknowledged that it might not be a practical idea. "Managers are worried about virtual sprawl and need to create friction to prevent it. The decision to deploy a virtual machine must be a business decision."

He warned that those that fail to control virtualization sprawl will see virtual environments cost more than the client-server deployments they replace.

Be on alert for 'cowboy activity'

Indeed Howard Fingeroth, vice president of infrastructure architecture at XL Capital (NYSE: XL) said that he brings in his virtualization vendor regularly for periodic health checks to ensure that there's no "cowboy activity" in his company's deployment -- which consists of 500 virtual machines (and 1,100 physical servers sitting outside the virtual environment) supporting 70 offices in 27 nations.

Bittman said that those that succeed will adopt virtualization for the cost savings but keep deploying it for the agility it delivers. Fingeroth said that virtualization has enabled him to deliver high availability for applications that are not cluster aware and that it had reduced the time required to provision a server from 4 weeks to 2.5 days.

Fingeroth added that virtualization has enabled him to better use storage (his operation includes iSCSI, NAS, and SAN technologies) and better use servers, increasing their life from 4 years to 5 years. Finally, it has allowed him to cut infrastructure costs and reduce the number of system administrators he employs.

PDF Flaw Patched -- But Does Anybody Know?

As expected, Adobe patched a zero-day vulnerability in its popular Adobe Reader software last week, marking the second time in three months that it delivered an update on the same day Microsoft issued its monthly fixes.

But while Microsoft's PowerPoint patch received lots of attention, the Adobe update should be at the top of people's to-do list, a security expert said today.

"Adobe's is more important than Microsoft's," said Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer at Qualys. "Even though Microsoft's had more visibility, if you have to choose between the two, you should patch Adobe. [Reader] is pretty much everywhere, attackers are increasing exploiting it and [PDF] is a widely-used corporate format."

The Reader vulnerability has been patched for all platforms in the free Reader 8 and 9, as well as in the corresponding versions of Adobe Acrobat, the for-pay PDF creation and editing application, the company said Tuesday.

Adobe's security advisory did not spell out the nature of the vulnerability, but earlier the company's security team had recommended that users disable JavaScript, indicating that the flaw was another bug in those applications' implementation of the scripting language.

Lack of detail is nothing new for Adobe's advisories; in March, when it patched another JavaScript bug in the same software, it also refused to provide anything more than general information because, while it had issued some updates, it had not managed to patch every version.

This week, Adobe updated Reader and Acrobat 9 to version 9.1.1, Reader and Acrobat 8 to version 8.1.5, and Reader and Acrobat 7 to version 7.1.2. But just as Microsoft did with its PowerPoint patch, Adobe stiffed Mac users. "Adobe expects to make available Adobe Reader 7 and Acrobat 7 updates for Macintosh before the end of June," the company said.

Adobe has staged updates in the past; in March the company said that waiting until all patches were ready for the February bug "just didn't make sense."

According to data from Finnish security company F-Secure, patching PDF bugs is critically important. So far this year, of the 663 targeted attacks F-Secure's uncovered -- targeted meaning attacks aimed at specific organizations or companies, or even individuals -- nearly half of them have relied on exploits of Adobe Reader vulnerabilities.

In the first four months of 2009, 48.9% of all targeted attacks involved a malicious PDF file attached to a legitimate-looking e-mail, said F-Secure, a dramatic change from 2008, when PDFs made up just 28.6% of target attacks. Previously, exploits of bugs in Microsoft Office's applications -- Word, Excel and PowerPoint -- made up the bulk of attacks.

"Why has it changed? Primarily because there have been more vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat/Reader than in the Microsoft Office applications," said Patrik Runald, chief research advisor at F-Secure, in a post to the company's blog last week.

Links to the Reader and Acrobat updates for Windows, Mac and Linux have been posted on Adobe's site.

Cisco Intros Latest Version of Network Magic Suite of Network Management Software for Home Networks

Cisco, a communications company, recently announced that it has updated its ‘Network Magic’ suite of network management software, which includes useful tools that enables consumers to easily setup, manage, and help secure their home networks.

A recent home networking survey conducted by ABI Research (News - Alert) indicates that one in three consumers experience difficulty setting up their home network. In this regard, Cisco developed Network Magic suite of network management software that - allows users to add new computers and devices; shares music, photos, files, and printers; manages and troubleshoots Internet and network connections; and helps block intruders from accessing the user’s wireless network.

The updated suite offers a new dynamic, interactive network map along with more intuitive navigation features, support for more types of networked consumer devices, support for 33 languages, an updated user interface (UI), comprehensive parental controls, and simplified access to printer and file sharing (from within Network Magic).

The latest release of Network Magic includes Network Magic Basic, Network Magic Essentials, and Network Magic Pro.

The Network Magic Basic features network mapping capabilities, guided wizards, viewable device details, centralized dashboards, wireless connection wizard, network device addition, wireless security setup, network intruder detection, Internet connection repair, and support for up to eight computers. A 30-day trial of Home Network Defender and 7-day trial of Network Magic Pro will be offered, said the company.

The Network Magic Essentials is for users who require the basic functionality. This software helps in solving issues with routers or utilizing the file and printer sharing capabilities and more. It can support a maximum of three computers and includes most of the features of Network Magic Basic.

The Network Magic Pro is a set of software applications for managing and securing the network with ease. It includes all the functionalities of Network Magic Essentials along with support for network attached storage devices, Internet access controls, real-time screenshot capabilities and daily usage reports that help in monitoring computer on the network.

In addition, Cisco (News - Alert) also announced that its Network Magic Basic will now be included with all Linksys by Cisco wireless routers, thereby making Network Magic Basic as the default network management tool of allLinksys ( News - Alert) by Cisco wireless routers. Users of Linksys by Cisco routers can download the software for free from networkmagic.com.

The new interactive network map along with more intuitive navigation feature present in Network Magic suite allows -- simplified access to printer and file sharing; adding wireless devices easily; and support for a broader range of devices than earlier generations of Network Magic. Al these features make the updated version more consumer-friendly, says company.

Additionally, new regional server support is provided for better measurement of local services via Network Magic SpeedTest function. Even Network Magic Mac add-on is provided that offers easy setup for cross-platform sharing of files and printers by PC and Macs on a home network, said the company.

Seattle tech firms anticipate Windows 7 opportunities

Tacoma-based software company IdentityMine Inc. has developed a niche in the underlying technology for “natural user interfaces,” as they’re known in the industry — betting, for example, that PC users will increasingly control their computers by touching their screens.
And it’s banking on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 7 to help make it happen.
The strategy isn’t without risk, as evidenced by the troubled tenure of the current Windows Vista operating system. But the industry is looking at Windows 7 as a fresh start, and IdentityMine isn’t the only one hitching its business to the new version of Microsoft’s flagship program.
Windows 7’s upcoming release is creating a glimmer of hope in an otherwise gloomy technology market. PC makers, chip manufacturers, retailers, software companies, technology service providers and others have begun to gear up for the release — particularly following Microsoft’s announcement May 11 that Windows 7 will debut this year, in time for the critical holiday shopping season.
“It’s going to bring a huge amount of awareness,” said Lu Silverstein, IdentityMine’s senior vice president of products and services, discussing Windows 7’s new touch technologies. Silverstein, who came from Microsoft last year, cited the marketing blitz that accompanies a big Windows release.
Other companies are thinking along the same lines. The potential business benefits of Windows 7 have come up repeatedly in recent conference calls, news releases and regulatory filings from such companies as PC maker Dell; business technology firms Citrix Systems and FullArmor; sound company Dolby Laboratories; and chip makers Cypress Semiconductor, Nvidia, and AMD; among others.
In many cases, the expected benefit comes from improved technologies under the hood in Windows 7 that will work with advanced software or components from those companies.
For example, better graphics technologies in Windows 7 could boost demand for dedicated graphics processors by generating new interest in a better visual experience, AMD executive Bob Rivet told Wall Street analysts in April, according to a transcript of the conference call.
Similarly, IdentityMine expects to benefit from Windows 7’s support for multi-touch technologies — the ability to use multiple fingers on a screen, as a supplement or replacement for a traditional keyboard and mouse. IdentityMine’s expertise in that area began with early work on specialized applications for Microsoft’s Surface tabletop computer.
It’s now working with other companies and software developers, offering its “Gesture Engine” to build touch features into Microsoft Surface and Windows 7 programs.
The company hasn’t been adding staff in anticipation of Windows 7’s release, but the related business has helped keep its employment levels steady this year — which is increasingly rare in the down economy. IdentityMine has 68 full-time employees, 38 of them in Washington .
Some in the industry hope interest in Windows 7 will fuel PC sales. Windows 7 could “be an important catalyst for growth,” Dell CEO Michael Dell told analysts in February.
That would put the new operating system somewhere ahead of Windows Vista but still well behind the blockbuster Windows 95 in terms of impact on the personal-computer market.
The big wild card is the economy. Worldwide PC shipments were down 7 percent in the first quarter, as the difficult economy put a crimp on purchases, according to market-research firm IDC .
And not everyone is convinced Windows 7 will lift PC purchases.
“I do not think there is any pent-up demand with respect to the (Windows 7) release, and so it is not having any effect on our business whatsoever,” said Kristin Rogers, vice president of marketing for catalog retailer PC Mall Inc., during a May 6 conference call with analysts.
“A new operating system hasn’t moved the market for a long time,” agreed Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the Kirkland-based Directions on Microsoft research firm, saying he generally doesn’t expect Windows 7 to make people buy new computers at a faster rate than they otherwise would have.
Among computer enthusiasts, there does seem to be demand for Windows 7, said Jon Bach, president of Puget Systems Inc., an Auburn-based custom computer maker. Many of them want a modern operating system that can work effectively with 64-bit microprocessors, which can handle far more memory than 32-bit chips. But because of Windows Vista’s negative reputation, many computer users and companies have avoided it, sticking with Windows XP for now.
Windows 7 will probably be a “trigger point” for many tech enthusiasts to buy machines with the new operating system pre-installed, Bach said.
For Microsoft, at least, Windows 7 offers a chance at redemption. After a series of delays, Windows Vista fell flat upon its January 2007 retail launch — experiencing widespread software and hardware compatibility problems that kept many businesses and consumers from upgrading.

H-P Tries to Revive PC Sales With Touch Screens

Hewlett-Packard Co., seeking to revive the sagging desktop-computer business, has tried to woo consumers with sleek personal computers with glossy, touch-sensitive screens.
But the touch-screen PCs, which can cost twice as much as typical machines, have been slow to catch on. H-P only sold about 400,000 of its TouchSmart desktops last year, compared with 54 million traditional desktops and laptops, estimates research firm IDC.
So H-P is embarking on a new strategy to find commercial uses for the technology. Last month, H-P installed 50 touch-screen PCs in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport for travelers to access online maps and restaurant listings.
Hewlett-Packard
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, left, and H-P's Stephen DeWitt test a touch-screen PC at O'Hare Airport in March.
In Michigan, H-P's touch screens are being put into luxury boxes in the Detroit Pistons' arena, where basketball fans can use them to access player statistics and see instant replays.
The commercial touch-screen effort is key to generating growth, since companies will "buy 10 TouchSmarts at a time" and not just one like an individual would, said Phil McKinney, an H-P chief technology officer overseeing the touch-screen project.
H-P's PC business will be closely watched when the Palo Alto, Calif., giant reports quarterly earnings on Tuesday. Desktop sales, which accounted for 38% of the $8.8 billion in revenue for H-P's PC division in the quarter ended Jan. 31, have been hit hard by the recession and a consumer shift towards laptops.
Desktop prices have also been falling. While it has fared better than rivals, H-P sold 15% fewer desktops last quarter than the same period a year earlier, and desktop revenue was down 25%.
The deteriorating desktop PC market is a problem for H-P Chief Executive Mark Hurd, who revived the company's once money-losing PC division and helped H-P solidify its spot as the world's largest PC maker in terms of shipments.
Still, H-P's PC division saw its operating margin, a measure of profitability, shrink to 5% in the January-ended quarter, down from 5.8% a year earlier.
Touch screens can help H-P combat that profit decline, analysts say. The average consumer desktop, excluding machines from Apple Inc., sold for $531 in March, down 6.7% from a year earlier, according to NPD Group, which tracks retail sales. In contrast, H-P's cheapest TouchSmart model has a list price of $1,200.
Uniguest Inc., a Nashville-based company that provides PCs with Internet access to hotels, began in January installing TouchSmart PCs in about two dozen hotels like the Nashville Airport Marriott.
"We're really pushing the new touch-screen technology," said Shawn Thomas, Uniguest's CEO. He said his company is paying between $1,200 and $1,600 per TouchSmart, but is in talks with H-P to place a large order and hopes to get a discount.
H-P isn't the only PC maker trying to boost falling desktop sales. Dell Inc. has introduced desktops in compact cases made of materials like bamboo and clear plastic, and earlier this year it also released a touch-screen desktop. Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc. also entered the touch-screen market last year.
H-P is offering the assistance of hardware and software consultants from its services division to help customers come up with new uses for touch technology.
The strategy pits H-P against rivals like International Business Machines Corp., which has long sold touch-screen computers to do things like print out airline boarding passes. IBM is also putting public computer kiosks into restaurants and retail stores.
Norma Wolcott, vice president of IBM's kiosk business, said IBM has tailored its touch screens, software and services for business use, arguing H-P's TouchSmart is more suited to consumers.
"It's what you want in your kitchen" and not in a high-traffic place like an airport, she said of the TouchSmart.
Bob Ducey, an H-P executive who is leading the TouchSmart's commercial marketing, said competitors like IBM are selling computers that do a single task -- such as printing out movie tickets -- rather than access a range of information over the Web. In contrast, Mr. Ducey said, the TouchSmart can be used to access information much like a home PC.
At the Palace in Auburn Hills arena near Detroit, a small company called Konsyerzh LLC plans to install 35 new TouchSmart machines by June. Gregory Nasto, the company's CEO, said Konsyerzh has developed programs that let fans access instant replays and order food and merchandise.
Mr. Nasto said he could end up spending up to $1,200 per machine but he's trying to negotiate additional discounts. He expects touch-screen PC prices to drop further in the next year as more competitors enter the field.
Recently, he said, Dell salespeople made a pitch for him to buy a competing touch-screen PC.

DisplayLink Releases Linux Source Code for Its USB Graphics Processors

LGPL Library Allows For the Development of Big Screen Connectivity for Linux devices
Interop Las Vegas 2009
PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today DisplayLink is taking steps to bring its USB display technology, formerly only available on Windows and Mac, to Linux. DisplayLink’s chips enable one or more high resolution displays to be connected via the standard, universal USB 2.0 connector. The library released today enables the creation of Linux software – X Servers, drivers, and other applications – which will work with the growing universe of products using DisplayLink technology.
The library is provided under the GNU Lesser General Public License v2 (LGPL), enabling software to be ported by the community to cover the widest possible range of processors, platforms, and applications. This ultimately enables companies to create products which will work on the full variety of Linux devices like netbooks, notebooks, mobile Internet devices, mobile phones, embedded displays, embedded devices, digital signage, and more.
“We are enabling those in the Linux community to take DisplayLink USB graphics technology and apply it to new and exciting range of applications,” said Jason Slaughter, director of marketing at DisplayLink. “DisplayLink technology can be found in many USB connected monitors, universal docking stations, and projectors, and there are thousands of Linux-based devices that could benefit greatly from the plug and display simplicity of USB graphics.”
In order to encourage the development of the best possible support for USB displays in Linux, DisplayLink has partnered with Novell, developer of SUSE Linux. “Novell works with hardware partners, like DisplayLink, to provide support for a wide range of devices in SUSE Linux Enterprise,” said Carlos Montero-Luque, vice president of business and product management at Novell. “Support for DisplayLink USB graphics devices will build on the broad hardware support already available in SUSE Linux Enterprise for notebooks, netbooks, and desktops and will give customers greater flexibility in choosing which device they use.”
DisplayLink has also partnered with the Linux Driver Project (LDP) in an effort to accelerate the development of Linux drivers for DisplayLink USB devices. “The LDP started out as a single place for hardware manufacturers to contact in order to get drivers written for their devices for free,” said Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux kernel developer and head of the Linux Driver Project, “We are now a group of more than 200 Linux kernel developers committed to improving Linux support for new hardware devices, like DisplayLink USB graphics.”
For companies building unique products on top of Linux, technology consulting companies such Endurance Technology in the UK, and InoScope in Poland are also available to provide paid development and support services for DisplayLink devices, also building on the DisplayLink LGPL library.
“By providing the widest possible support for DisplayLink devices under the LGPL license, we combine the ubiquitous connectivity of USB and the kind of universal device coverage only possible with Linux to creating an ideal breeding ground for innovation on DisplayLink’s hardware platform,” added Slaughter.
For more information about the DisplayLink LGPL Library project or to download the source code, go to www.displaylink.org.
About DisplayLink
DisplayLink Corp. (www.displaylink.com) is a chip and software company that enables easy connectivity between computers and displays over standard interfaces like USB, Wireless USB, and Ethernet. Its innovations make it easy to incrementally expand the desktop visual workspace at significantly lower cost and power than traditional solutions. DisplayLink technology can transmit graphically rich content between a single device and multiple displays over relatively low-speed busses and networks. Leading global manufacturers have integrated DisplayLink USB graphics – a 2008 PC Magazine Technical Excellence Award winner - into an array of PC accessories including monitors, docking stations, display adapters and projectors. Shop DisplayLink enabled USB graphics products at www.displaylink.com/shop.

Microsoft's Software Pipeline Set to Burst

LOS ANGELES -- If there was one revelation at this week's Microsoft TechEd conference it was that the company's product pipeline is stuffed with new software timed for release in the next seven to 12 months that will force corporate IT to deftly plan and strategize how it wants to deal with the onslaught.

Four of Microsoft's major platforms are queued up to be released near the end of 2009 or early 2010.

Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010 are all slated to ship by year-end, as is the company's new identity federation platform, Geneva.

On the heels of all that is another granddaddy Microsoft platform -- Office 2010, which is slated to ship early in 2010 and includes the wildly popular SharePoint Server under the Office product family banner.

Behind that heavy-hitter lineup of software, each one individually capable of providing IT with an upgrade cycle that extends well past 12 months, is a new version of SQL Server and an appliance version of the database for massively parallel processing that will come in the first half of 2010

Users trying to make sense of it all can add to the mix a handful of code-named projects that includes new Application Server technology for Internet Information Server (Dublin); a client console for Forefront security software (Stirling); a distributed cache system for clustering technology (Velocity); and a componentized version of Windows Embedded for devices (Quebec). All that software will be available in late 2009 and throughout 2010.

This week's TechEd agenda was jammed with sessions centered on no fewer than 10 code-named future products.

"In the tech sector there is a lot of planning and strategy going on," says Karen Hobert, principal analyst at Top Dog consulting. "When the dust settles, people may strategize around all this and figure out how to balance cost with operational innovation."

Hobert says the economy is forcing CIOs to take a collective inhale and a wait-and-see attitude. She says IT is doing more strategy and planning these days because gaffes are difficult to overcome.

The Department of Labor's February jobs report statistics show some evidence of that thinking. Technical consulting jobs were up nearly 3% in February 2009 as compared with the same month in 2008.

Other evidence is coming directly, and loudly, from Microsoft, which is offering planning advice that has never been clearer.

Stop Testing Vista, Microsoft Says

At TechEd, keynote presenter Bill Veghte, senior vice president for the Windows business, said companies testing Vista should stop and move to testing Windows 7. The same advice was repeated for users who have not yet moved to Exchange 2007; they were told to skip it and wait for 2010.

The advice is a marked change from Microsoft's typical straddling act in which users are rarely publicly encouraged to abandon one upgrade plan for the impending release of the new version of a product.

"[Microsoft] is being brutally honest," Top Dog's Hobert says.

Users who have sifted through the haze say a strong focus in needed going forward.

John Ritter, IT manager in the School of Business at the University of Vermont, says the school is actively testing Windows 7 in its lab.

"We want to leverage XP Mode for a financial services app we have that doesn't run on Vista," he says, noting that Windows 7 solves a need the school has now.

Ritter says the department has a high tolerance for trying new technology, but that attitude doesn't eliminate strategy.There are also plans to roll out Windows Server 2008 R2 to take advantage of new group policy features that will help with power management and cost cutting. And he says Exchange 2010 is under the microscope because users won't have a migration option and will be forced to do more difficult upgrades when moving from Exchange 2007.

The same issue was on the top of the list for another IT manager from a state government agency who asked that his name not be used.

"We are going to have to carefully plan out the upgrade because we don't have any budget to get another machine, which we would need," he says.

Clearly, with all the software released by Microsoft in the next year, choices will have to be made and the clearest indication of what those choices are could come in July when Microsoft reports its earnings, including the depth of corporate renewals on Enterprise Agreement (EA) contracts. Those volume licensing agreements run for three years and give users licenses for software, most notably Windows and Office. And a significant portion of those contracts historically expire in Microsoft's fiscal fourth (April to June).

With Windows 7 shipping in the next seven months, volume-licensing customers will likely renew EA contracts, which would give users the rights to the new client operating system.

In addition, generally favorable user reviews coming out of TechEd on Windows Server 2008 R2 could lead companies to cover Core Client Access Licenses on their EA contracts. With those client access rights, users would be inclined to look at the new version of Exchange and SharePoint Server 2010.

The results could either be a perfect storm for Microsoft with major product releases carefully planned to coincide with an important milestone in the IT buyer's upgrade cycle, or a roar that falls on nearly deaf ears and severely deflated corporate wallets.

Yesterday Lenovo revealed its IdeaPad S10-2 netbook, featuring 3G connectivity and Dolby headphone technology.

Yesterday Lenovo said that its IdeaPad S10-2 netbook will be available by the end of May, with models starting at $349 over on Lenovo's website and other "business partners." The company designed the new netbook for entertainment buffs looking for a device capable of streaming online TV while providing social networking, digital photography, and more multimedia goodness on one device. With models offering 3G and Dolby headphone technology, consumers can experience music and movies usually reserved for laptop devices.

According to the company, the new IdeaPad S10-2 is thinner and lighter than the previous IdeaPad S10 netbook currently listed on the website. The new model also sports an "expressive, colorful new ring pattern design" printed on the top cover (in a choice of grey, pink, white, or black) so the device looks hip and cool, and not quite as nerdy as the hardware Tuan drags around the office. Weighing just over two pounds and measuring just under an inch thick, the netbook doesn't feel like luggage, or hog up excessive desktop space.

Although Lenovo slimmed down the netbook (compared to the previous model), the company managed to retain a keyboard that's 90-percent the size of a standard keyboard, making it easier for consumers to comfortably chat online or flame writers on the Tom's forum without having to condense keystrokes. In addition to the keyboard, the IdeaPad S10-2 provides additional improvements over the previous model such as three USB ports, a 4-in-one card reader, and a battery that can hold a six-hour charge thanks to the netbook's battery saving software, achieving up to 30-percent more life than before. But while the new model features a lighter, slimmer figure, the weight loss comes with a price: a slightly smaller display, now 10.1-inches compared to the IdeaPad S10's 10.2-inch display.

What caught our eye in regards to this netbook is that it offers a 3G connectivity (on certain models). The company made many references to "on demand," whether it's connecting the netbook anywhere with a wireless connection, to using Lenovo's QuickStart feature to launch applications on the fly. The netbook even saves time when logging in, using VeriFace facial recognition technology to grant users access to the netbook without the need for typed passwords. VeriFace actually uses the netbook's built-in web camera to scan and approve the user's face, however the camera isn't locked by the software, and can be used for other applications such as Skype calling, video message recording, or to launch one of those kinky "Live Cam" websites Marcus likes to frequent.

“With the netbook scene rapidly changing, consumers are telling us they want to merge the capabilities of their most commonly used sources of electronic entertainment, such as digital photographs, online TV, music and social networks all into one portable and affordable device,” said Dion Weisler, vice president, Business Operations, Idea Product Group, Lenovo. “We’ve incorporated that feedback into our new IdeaPad S10-2 netbook, giving consumers around the world more ways to connect with options for wireless connectivity, a more portable and expressive design and entertainment-packed features.”

Unfortunately, Lenovo didn't bother to send any hardware specs outside the meager helpings found here. The company did offer a few tidbits, saying that the IdeaPad S10-2 uses the latest Intel Atom processor, a 10.1-inch LED screen, and "plenty of hard drive storage." The netbook also offers Dolby headphone technology, allowing consumers to plug in any headset and hear surround sound audio from 5.1 channels of sound. Other than this handful of clues, we're not exactly sure what each model with provide until Lenovo launches the product page by the end of the month. Still, this netbook shows promise, and with a (starting) pricetag of $349, the IdeaPad S10-2 doesn't seem to have any ideas of trageting the low-end netbook market.

The Reasons Behind Google and IBM Being Ahead of the Competition

Steve Mills, SVP of IBM Software (left), and Dr. John Kelly, SVP of IBM Research, view Stream Computing technology.
A huge population of red ants has bedeviled Texas farmers for years. By some estimates the insects cost state businesses close to $1 billion a year due to crop and machinery destruction. Killing the ants and their nests has not proven easy.

Texas A&M researchers have discovered that the phorid fly from South America will lay eggs on the fire ants and the maggots which are hatched eat away at the ant's brains, eventually causing their heads to fall off. Someone at the university was willing to underwrite the work to solve a problem. That investment was almost certainly much less than the $1 billion a year that fire ants cost businesses in the state. (See pictures of bug cuisine.)

A recession does not stop advancements in technology. It just makes companies so frightened of risk that they choose not to make the investment in the fire ant projects.

In the last week, the two most successful technology companies in the world, IBM (IBM) and Google (GOOG) have announced major new products. These are developments that will probably help the firms take business away from their competitors. The scope of the products' applications is broad enough that the R&D investment to create them must have been extensive.

IBM released "stream computing" applications that allow businesses to look at and analyze huge amounts of data in real time. Describing the product, IBM said "System S is built for perpetual analytics — utilizing a new streaming architecture and breakthrough mathematical algorithms, to create a forward-looking analysis of data from any source — narrowing down precisely what people are looking for and continuously refining the answer as additional data is made available." The ability to have access to that kind of information will undoubtedly be valuable to governments, the financial industry, and large multinationals with thousands of retail outlets. The new software is unique and does not appear to have any direct competition.

Google also announced a new set of products. The most important one allows the company's customers to take very large amounts of search data and organize it into spreadsheets. As it released the new tools and several other innovations, Google said they would "open up whole new ways of searching that haven't previously been available." Yahoo! (YHOO) does not have anything to compete with the new technology. Microsoft (MSFT) does not either, despite its unparalleled access to capital and software engineering talent. (See pictures of Bill Gates: The Early Years.)

The shares of Google and IBM have handily outperformed those of all the other large tech companies based in the U.S. such as Hewlett Packard (HPQ), Microsoft (MSFT), Cisco (CSCO), and Oracle (ORCL). Each of the companies is blessed with substantial earnings and technology staffs in the tens of thousands. But, the firms are not all viewed the same, at least by investors who trade tens of millions of their shares each day.

In most ways, IBM and Google are not like one another at all. IBM makes its money selling expensive hardware, client services, and software to companies, most of which are very large, and to governments. Google has millions of customers who pay nothing to use its services. It has millions of advertisers who spend money to reach people who look at search results and most of these marketers are very small. (See pictures of Google Earth.)

What the companies do have in common is a willingness to take risks, probably risks with long odds in order to launch new products. These products may be failures, but they are well enough researched and designed that they have a good chance of keeping IBM and Google ahead of the competition even if that does not immediately involve significant new revenue.

The fire ant problem never goes away. Unsolved problems in every industry cost companies money. Sometimes companies do not even know that their problems can be solved. The phorid fly is an obscure species. So is software that can analyze huge amounts of data in real time.

— Douglas A. McIntyre

New version of Windows ready for the holidays

If a new PC operating system is what you want for the holidays, Microsoft hopes to have just the thing.

The software giant says the next version of Windows will go on sale just in time for the holidays.

Microsoft published a nearly final version of Windows 7 last week for developers.

Windows 7 is intended to be the replacement for the much criticized Vista, which was launched too late for the 2006 holiday season.

The timing of the release could help give a much needed lift to PC sales, which have been slowed by the recession.

Google showcases new search technology

"Search options" will let people narrow a search to specific time periods, such as the past 24 hours.

"Squared" will compile subject matter in a spreadsheet-like display with facts given in columns. It is a useful format, for example, for someone checking various breeds of small dogs.

Google's use of mathematical algorithms is getting more sophisticated for sifting through web site data.

"Something is something, different tables, different structures, and then corroborating the evidence around whether or not something's a fact by looking at whether or not that fact occurs across pages," Vice President of Search Marissa Mayer said.

Google is also rolling out the "wonder wheel." It is a graphic way to suggest related searches.

Even with all these new tools, Google says it is trying to get information to people as quickly as possible. Nielsen NetRatings, a research company, says that people spend less time on Google than they do on MSN or Yahoo for searches, and Google says that is a badge of honor.

"Speed is the key; to us, speed is the most important thing, in fact, we measure ourselves in many different ways based on speed, how fast people get the answers," engineering Vice President Udi Manber said.

Google says search on mobile devices is the real growth area, and it is creating search displays that are easy to see and use on small screens with tiny keyboards.

"You type in a number -- your flight, you get the information right there, or you get the option to call the restaurant, right there on your phone because it is a mobile device, so let's take advantage of the hardware, pretty smart," David Needle of Internetnews.com said.

The next cool project Google working on? Skymap displays the stars over people's location, adjusting the view as the mobile device moves.

Cloud computing — simple and cost-effective IT

CHENNAI: When Netscape launched its Internet browser, nobody anticipated the kind of changes Internet would bring about in human behaviour and the interface with the external world. The much talked about “cloud computing” promises to change the way Information Technology people look at delivering IT and the way business people look at IT.

Consumers using the Internet are not aware of the location of the server or the delivery of information/service to them or the route taken by the data to travel. As technologies developed, vendors have started offering the entire range of services required by an organisation over the Internet safely and securely. This in a way refers to cloud computing.

In cloud computing, the user need not own the technology platform, technology infrastructure or required software. They become available like power at the press of a switch. In a way, much of capital expenses (hardware, infrastructure cost, etc) is converted into revenue expenses with cloud computing.

Today, IT vendors such as Sun, IBM, HP, Microsoft and Google swear by the cloud computing architecture. They say it will bring a new level of efficiency and economy to deliver IT resources on demand. In the process, it opens up new business models and market opportunities.

“If you want to slash your IT spending, maximise the flexibility of your systems, and be able to run your business from almost anywhere, then it’s time to jump on the hot new IT trends: cloud computing, and software-as-a-service (SaaS). You are probably already using some SaaS tools such as Gmail, Hotmail and YouTube, which are all free examples of SaaS delivered via the cloud,” says an IT analyst.

“The pay-per-use” model of cloud computing allows maximum IT efficiency with minimum cost. However, the real benefit comes from business agility to exploit opportunities leading to maximum returns. The recent emergence of massive network bandwidth and virtualisation technologies has enabled this transformation.

Cloud computing does not imply that one discards the entire existing infrastructure and embraces the cloud. One can complement the existing infrastructure with required parts from the cloud. “Actually, an IT organisation can increase hardware utilisation rates dramatically and to scale up to massive capacities in an instant — without constantly having to invest in new infrastructure, train new personnel or license new software. It also creates new opportunities to build a better breed of network services, in less time, at a lower cost,” says S. Madhavan, founder of GQuotient.

Services for all

The common perception of state-of-the-art IT infrastructure is the cost and that only big players can afford it. But cloud computing makes services available to all irrespective of size. “While big businesses are leading the way in the use of cloud and SaaS tools, experts argue, the benefits are probably the biggest for small and medium-sized companies which often cannot afford to hire IT staff to build, manage and maintain their systems. Under the cloud computing model, these functions are effectively outsourced.”

The pay-as-you-go model behind cloud computing and SaaS allows smaller companies to increase (or decrease) their IT investment in systems as their firms grow. In the current economic development, SMEs will be attracted towards cloud computing, SaaS and virtualisation. These models can help smaller businesses deliver new products and services quicker and at a lower cost, says a recent report by consulting group BroadGroup.

The SaaS model is gaining a lot of traction in the business world, with most large software vendors and application service providers, including HP, IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce.com, now offering business applications such as customer relationship management (CRM), databases, knowledge management and web development software as web-based utilities.

Analyst Gartner estimates that typically organisations have a project savings of 25-40 per cent by deploying SaaS-based CRM applications. SaaS is particularly attractive to the SME sector because it removes the high entry costs associated with some business applications.

But who owns the “cloud”? What is the security? What is the percentage of external and internal cloud one should own? These are the some of the commonly asked questions. In the current trend, SUN, IBM, HP, SAS and others have started outsourcing cloud computing. They have started setting up cloud computing facilities to provide on-demand services.

With IT budgets under pressure, the corporates could use cloud computing selectively, and some of the challenges like security will be resolved as this industry matures.

New Google software will identify stars and planets via mobile phone pictures

Stargazers will soon be able to identify stars and planets in the night sky via their mobile phone and Google.

The search engine is pioneering software which can identify distant planets and galaxies from a photo taken on a mobile.

The Google Earth technology, called Star Droid, will use GPS mapping systems which are now in most new handsets, to identify the position of the user and compare it with existing maps of space.

It will then automatically attach name tags to the stars and planets that can be seen through the viewfinder.

Carolin Crawford, of Cambridge University’s institute of astronomy, said: 'We find many members of the public have a real enthusiasm about stars and planets, but I’m afraid this is often not matched by much knowledge.

'This innovation sounds like it could be really useful to help people learn what they are looking at. It will be interesting to see how much the camera on the phones will be able to pick up.

'The night sky is pretty crowded. Whereas Venus can appear bright in the sky, many stars appear very dimly and may be difficult for a camera-phone to spot.'

Experts believe the growth of street lighting and pollution over the past century have left urban dwellers struggling to identify even the best-known constellations, such as the Plough or Orion.

The application, which could be launched as early as this week, is also likely to identify the object’s distance from Earth and its position within a constellation.

Apple Moves Closer to Snow Leopard Release

Apple's operating system developers are hard at work pushing to get out the next major version of the Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, as evidenced by the recent pace of test builds the company has released to external developers. The company also looks to bolster its enterprise presence by tying iPhones to Mac OS X servers as remote-access devices.

Apple's operating system developers are hard at work pushing to get out the next major version of the Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, as evidenced by the recent pace of test builds the company has released to external developers, among other things.

Moreover, with the next big release of its operating system platform, Apple is showing signs of beefing up its enterprise presence, particularly regarding integration with the iPhone as an enterprise supporting device, AppleInsider indicates.

In addition to delivering a new test build of the upcoming Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard version of its flagship operating system, Apple introduced a new build of the next incremental update to the current "Leopard" version of Mac OS, which will be 10.5.7. The current Mac OS X 10.5 family release is Mac OS X 10.5.6, which was released in December 2008.

Apple released build 10A335 of Snow Leopard to developers on April 23. This build comes just three weeks after the previous test release. Apple also released Build 9J56 of Mac OS 10.5.7, which features "Bluetooth compatibility and stability fixes," according to one report.

Apple watchers say the company is pushing to get Snow Leopard out this summer. Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will run June 8-12 in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, Apple also released a new build of the server version of Snow Leopard with improved certificate management, Podcast Producer, Mail Server and Calendar Server, according to reports.

Indeed, an AppleInsider report on the new test build said:

"The Cupertino-based company reportedly made no mention of any significant changes in Thursday's beta but continued encouraging developers to start working on and testing any 64-bit kernel extensions that their third-party products will require under Snow Leopard.

"Apple did list a handful of bugs affecting build 10A335, people familiar with the matter say. Among them were crashes in QuickTime X player, application crashes under Rosetta, problems with Migration Assistant and odd errors being spit out by the new version of Disk Utility."

The AppleInsider team did some sleuthing through the WWDC 2009 agenda and came across a session that indicates that Apple will provide remote access to enterprise servers, particularly Mac OS X servers, via the iPhone.

According to the AppleInsider report, the WWDC agenda touts a session that says :

"The Mobile Access Server provides a path through a corporate firewall for IMAP, SMTP, HTTP, and CalDAV without using VPN. Learn about the features of, and deployment tips for, this powerful new service in Snow Leopard Server."

If Apple can pull off this effort, the company will be able to further capitalize on its hot iPhone mobile platform to make inroads against Research In Motion's BlackBerry and Microsoft Windows Mobile in enterprise environments.

Said AppleInsider:

"Users will be able to access internal network resources from their iPhone or iPod touch with the same level of security that banks and online merchants use to provide SSL-encrypted website access. And because Apple designs both the server and the mobile client software, it can make the setup and configuration for using Mobile Access secured resources nearly invisible to end users.

"That strategy may likely help tie the growing popularity of iPhones among corporate and government users to increased sales of Snow Leopard Server, and draw more attention toward Apple's Mac Server offerings as a much less expensive alternative to Microsoft's combination of Windows Server, Exchange Server messaging, SharePoint collaboration, and Exchange Active Sync for supporting remote access to mobile devices."

A separate report indicates that Apple will deliver screen recording features in Snow Leopard via the QuickTime X Player that is set to ship with Snow Leopard when it is released this summer.

Hands On: Ubuntu 9.04 Brings Only Minor Updates

Having rocketed to prominence as one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions in just a few years, Ubuntu has earned a reputation for stability and ease-of-use. The latest edition -- version 9.04, code-named "Jaunty Jackalope" -- continues that tradition and is mostly a maintenance release, but it brings a number of updates that should enhance its appeal.

The list of bundled applications is largely unchanged, but they're all new versions. Chief among these is the inclusion of OpenOffice.org 3.0, which should appease those who were disappointed that it didn't make the cut for the previous release. The new version of the free office suite maintains the same look and feel, and it still launches slowly, but it brings some new features, including improved compatibility with Microsoft Office 2007.

[ Desktop Linux is a worthy successor to Windows XP in business. Nevertheless, it may have lost its chance.]

Founder Mark Shuttleworth has hinted that big changes to Ubuntu's look and feel are coming with the next release in October -- changes that might even include abandoning its traditional, but controversial, brown color scheme -- but the cosmetic updates in version 9.04 are minor. There are new boot and log-in screens, new desktop background images, and a few UI improvements that came free with the upgrade to Gnome 2.26, but nothing that should surprise anyone who has used an earlier version of Ubuntu.

Be notified

Perhaps the most significant UI addition, one unique to Ubuntu, is the new desktop notification mechanism. Application messages -- anything from audio volume changes to alerts from your IM client -- now appear in black pop-up boxes in the upper-right corner of the screen. The idea is to make these messages as unobtrusive as possible by avoiding distractions such as modal dialog boxes. Whether it succeeds will probably depend on the user. This system is new to Linux, but it resembles features available on Windows and Mac OS X. What might annoy some Linux users, however, is the fact that it's not configurable. There is no preference panel to change its behavior and no way to switch back to the old notification system. Even if you hate it, you're stuck with it.

This is typical of Ubuntu, which often sacrifices some configurability for the sake of ease-of-use. For example, while Ubuntu includes support for GUI bling by way of Compiz Fusion, some of the more talked-about effects -- including the famed "desktop cube" -- are disabled by default. To enable them, users have to install an unsupported software package that provides a new control panel.

Ubuntu 9.04 is guilty of worse sins, however. When I booted the installation CD, it cheerfully informed me that my computer had no operating systems installed on it and offered to partition the entire drive. In reality, the PC contained not just a previous version of Ubuntu, but Windows Vista and an abortive installation of Mac OS X as well. Lucky for me I know how to manage partitions by hand.

Slips and hitches
During installation, the system offered to migrate user information from the Windows drive that it failed to detect earlier, but upon logging in, no data seemed to have been transferred. Firefox showed only the default bookmark entries and nothing from either Internet Explorer or the Windows installation of Firefox. On the positive side, Ubuntu recognized my NTFS partitions after boot and made them available for mounting without a hitch.

Typical of Linux, hardware support remains a mixed bag, and the Ubuntu team can't take all of the blame. Ubuntu's default open source video driver wouldn't recognize a TV as a second monitor out of the box, but installing Nvidia's own, proprietary driver was trivial. I was less successful with a networked printer, however. The Add Printer wizard spotted it right away but couldn't find an appropriate driver, and while the manufacturer does offer drivers for Linux, the installation packages were not compatible with the 64-bit version of Ubuntu. These kinds of hardware issues remain among the thorniest problems desktop Linux users face.

These gripes aside, the latest version of Ubuntu maintains its reputation for quality while offering incremental updates to a variety of software packages. Ubuntu 9.04 is not an LTS (long-term support) release, so customers who need an OS that will be maintained through 2011 should stick with last year's 8.04 ("Hardy Heron") edition . For those who just want a stable, polished desktop OS that's packed with the latest open source software, however, Ubuntu 9.04 is a worthwhile download.

[[ Bottom line: Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition brings minor cosmetic and UI enhancements to the easy-to-use desktop distribution. Highlights include new versions of OpenOffice.org and Gnome, as well as a new desktop notification feature. On the downside, installation was marred by missteps, and hardware support remains mixed.]]

Safari, Opera Users Lag Behind in Security Updates

Users of the Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox
Web browsers are far more likely to be cruising the Web with the latest, most secure versions of the browsers than users of either Opera or Safari, a study released today found.

The analysis, from researchers at Google Switzerland and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, pored through anonymized logs from Google's Web servers. The results were somewhat unsurprising, but still interesting: 97 percent of Chrome users were browsing with the latest version within 21 days of that version's release date.

By comparison, 85 percent of Firefox users were surfing with the latest version within three weeks of a major new release (this is a marginal improvement over the results from a similar study released last summer, which showed roughly 83 percent of Firefox users browsing with the latest version).

The study's conclusion extols the virtues of auto-update features, functionality that is built into both Chrome and Firefox, albeit in different ways. Chrome's auto-update feature can't be disabled; the browser checks for updates every five hours; and any available updates are automatically and silently installed. Firefox checks for new updates whenever the browser is started; installs updates automatically; and requires a restart for the fixes to take effect.

The study found just 53 percent of Apple Safari 3.x users had the latest version installed 21 days after its release. Apple releases patches for Safari through the Software Update feature in OS X, which checks for updates daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the setting chosen by the user.

Only 24 percent of Opera users were browsing with the latest version three weeks after a new release, the researchers found. Opera's update mechanism has long been the most laborious of the browsers, requiring users to download a new installer program from the Opera Web site with each new version.

The study didn't attempt to measure the update frequency of Microsoft Internet Explorer users. But, a new report from Forrester Research indicates that among corporate users, IE6 is the browser of choice. Forrester found that 78 percent of businesses still use IE as the default browser, with a whopping 60 percent still using IE6.

Google may have the most protected browser users, but the company still only has about a 2 percent market share among business users, Forrester found (that number is almost certainly higher among end users).

Finally, if Chrome silently auto-updates itself, why aren't 100 percent of Chrome users browsing with the latest version? The study notes that Chrome updates only kick in after the user has restarted the browser, and there is no prompt that reminds the user to restart the program.

"Apparently, a significant population share does not restart their browser within three weeks of a new release." Read-only installs of Chrome -- such as those installed in Internet cafes or libraries -- could also explain why some Chrome users don't update, the researchers speculated.

Android Gets Updated to Version 1.5

The long-expected update to the Android operating system, version 1.5, has arrived. T-Mobile will be rolling out the new OS to existing G1 phones starting sometime next week. While you wait for your share of the software upgrade, take heart: There's plenty to be excited about in the 1.5 release.

The final release of the Android 1.5 OS, previously known as "Cupcake," finally brings an on-screen virtual keyboard with vibration feedback, plus video recording, playback, and sharing via YouTube. T-Mobile is expected to roll out this update to all its G1 customers by the end of the month.

Cupcake also brings many user interface refinements, along with accelerometer-based application rotations. The home screen now features widgets as well; some of the bundled ones include a calendar, an analog clock, music player, and search (with improved voice search).

Video captured with the G1's camera can now easily be shared via YouTube.

G1's browser is up for a treat also, with new copy and paste, search within a page, tabbed bookmarks, and history features. Wireless music fans will appreciate their G1 even more with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support (iPhone users -- hang on, you're getting this in 3.0 also) while auto-pairing was added with an improved hands-free experience.

Gmail on the G1 gets upgraded with batch editing functionality for archives, labels, and deleting. The contacts app will now show user pictures for your favorites and specific date and time stamps for events in the call log.

Google has put up a presentation video (below) of the Android 1.5 release. It's worth noting that the engineer showcases the new Android 1.5 features on the G2 (HTC Magic), which is available only in Europe at the moment on Vodafone. The European G2 doesn't have a physical keyboard and comes with a 3.2-megapixel camera (same as the G1).

With the Android 1.5 release, Google has caught up with the features expected to come from its main rivals this summer -- the iPhone 3.0 update and Palm's WebOS. All in all, it's nice to see that Google approached the same strategy as Apple when it comes to upgrading a phone's features without making the hardware obsolete (unlike, ahem, Nokia).

Should you upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista? That depends

The final test version of Microsoft's Windows 7, the replacement for problem-ridden Windows Vista, is being unveiled now for a tryout. Some believe the new operating system will be available in stores and on new computers by fall.

For those who want to try it out, a free Windows 7 download is available at www.microsoft.com/ windows/windows-7/ default.aspx. Because it's free, the test version will quit working June 1, 2010. For a list of new features in Windows 7, see the www.microsoft.com/windows/ windows-7/whats-new.aspx site.

Why would Microsoft give away the Windows 7 test version? After all the bad press Windows Vista has gotten, letting people test-drive the new model is good public relations. Vista's problems have included frequent crashes, software incompatibilities, slow operations and a needlessly confusing menu system. Experts who have seen Windows 7 say it resembles Windows XP, which would be good because XP now is a dependable operating system. But Vista will continue to be sold, Microsoft says.

If you have a relatively new PC with Windows Vista, should you upgrade to Windows 7? Yes, because Vista's not stable. Your Vista PC should run Windows 7 because the requirements are similar.

If you have an older PC with Windows XP, should you upgrade to Windows 7? Wait and see. But to upgrade, your PC needs to be powerful enough (a similar issue existed with upgrading from XP to Vista). To run Windows 7, your older PC must have at least a 1-gigahertz processor and 1 gigabyte of random-access memory (RAM).

Q: I recently purchased a 64-bit laptop. (The number of bits refers to the amount of RAM memory the PC can use; anything over 4 gigabytes of RAM requires a 64-bit PC rather than a 32-bit computer.) Why is there no Adobe Flash Player program available for 64-bit computers? Every time I need Flash, I have to switch from the Internet Explorer to the Firefox browser, which is a pain.

A: The 64-bit version of Adobe Flash Player 10 (a key piece of software for showing animations or movies in a Web browser) recently became available for Windows browsers. Go to get.adobe.com/flashplayer to download it.

But that may not be your problem. Adobe says many conflicts between its Flash Player and the Internet Explorer browser are related to the Windows registry, which stores settings for Windows. Check out "Troubleshooting Flash Player crash or freeze" at the kb2.adobe.com/cps/408/kb408620.html site. The "End User's General Troubleshooting" is near the bottom of the page.