November 18th, 2009

Office 2010 Beta 2: More than just a bunch of pretty icons

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 3:40 am

Categories: Breaking news, Downloads, Microsoft, Office 14, Productivity, Windows Live, e-Learning

Tags: Beta, Office 2010, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office, Groupware, Office Suites, Software, Enterprise Software, Zack Whittaker

Office 2010 is more than just a bunch of pretty icons. I’ve only been playing with the Beta 2 of Office 2010 for a few hours now, but considering that my academic life pretty much takes absolute precedence over anything else, using Office for a short time feels (and practically is) like a lifetime already.

Outlook is without doubt the killer application. I’ve only recently dived head first into Outlook after a long, painful struggle with my email management, but am glad to have done so. Windows Live Mail is great and has done me well, but after my hard drive fried, it was just too much of a pain to set up again.

Gallery
To see a selection of changes in Outlook 2010 and other common student-based Office 2010 Beta 2 applications, head over to the screenshot gallery for a peek.

Upgrading from previous versions is just a dream. I haven’t had to change a single setting after migrating from Outlook 2007 to 2010 (but I did check, just to be sure). But there are three new features which you need to take note of:

• The Ribbon is finally here. We knew this long ago when I broke the story initially of Outlook being first seen in the wild, thanks to my leaky plumber friend at Microsoft.

• The social connector keeps you in check with the people you communicate with. If you’re running on an Exchange server, pictures and details can be shared with one another allowing you to see presence, instant message one another, see previous correspondance and check their calendars.

• Conversation views allow you to track what was said and to whom, and when. It reads email to you like a story; starting off at the bottom and working its way through, adding each reply to the very top to keep your conversations to-and-fro organised and seamless. No longer will you have to depend on replies including the original message, even though some strongly disagree.

Of course I could easily go on and on, but it’s nearly 5am where I am and my all-nighter was meant to be spent doing university work. However, I’ll be using Office 2010 not because I like to play with things before they hit the shelves, but because the improvements to the entire suite has left a positive feeling in my cold, dark, hating and stoney heart.

Have you played with it yet? Any thoughts so far?

October 31st, 2009

Web addresses to extend to non-English languages

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 8:46 am

Categories: Breaking news, Environment, Major breakthroughs, Next-generation technology, Web 2.0

Tags: Web, ICANN, Web Address, Channel Management, Domain Names, Marketing, Internet, Zack Whittaker

Since the very start of web addresses being introduced, only Latin-script (English) based web addresses would work. With the ever increasing number of web addresses in use, the regulatory body assigning domain name details has approved the use of non-English addresses.

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, have approved a number of internationalised domain names (IDN’s) which could be rolled out as soon as next year, the BBC report.

At the moment, only the standard 26-letter English alphabet from A-Z and including 0-9 can be used. This new process will allow in theory any language using any symbol to enter web addresses.

This move will see the next generation web for non-English speaking users, and in short, will make the Internet truly local to whoever may use the web.

From two weeks time, ICANN will begin accepting applications for IDN’s and will make the first ones available from mid-2010.

Starting with the most popular languages, according to the BBC article:

“It is likely the majority of early non-Latin net addresses to be approved will be in Chinese and Arabic script, followed by Russian.

Some countries, such as China and Thailand, have already introduced workarounds that allow computer users to enter web addresses in their own language. However, these were not internationally approved and do not work on all computers.”

This appears to be ICANN’s first major step since receiving autonomy from the US government last month. How web browsers will respond to this it is not so clear. However, with Firefox, by entering in a non-English set of characters, seems to convert it only to English when submitted.

Will this make the Internet more accessible? Have your say.

October 28th, 2009

Facebook freezes deceased person's profiles

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 5:03 am

Categories: Breaking news, Security, Social networking, Weird and wonderful

Tags: Facebook, Page, Person, Zack Whittaker

Facebook for some time adopted a policy which allows profiles of the deceased to stay as they are. With the importance of online identities and many more people than before using the online space as a communications tool, when people pass away, the impact can be more obvious than a few years ago.

But now as the world’s largest community and social network, the company recognises that a number of users will die each and every day and that their online identities and pages should be memorialised - primarily for others to preserve their memory. Read the rest of this entry »

October 25th, 2009

Universities in hot water over students' peer-to-peer sharing

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 4:42 pm

Categories: Breaking news, Downloads, Government, Legal and political, Money, Piracy and file-sharing, University, University fun

Tags: Network, P2P, British Broadcasting Corp., Student, File-sharing, Peer To Peer (P2P), Government, Internet, Zack Whittaker

The battle against online piracy is heating up: a new artist led initiative is taking on the diplomatic and negotiation approach whereas governments and legislators are hitting down punitive policies on their citizens.

Jon Newton of p2pnet, alongside Billy Bragg, musician and director of the Featured Artists Coalition, have begun work on a2f2a.com, a campaign started to discuss how artists can cut out the middleman - such as the suicide inducing RIAA - and ensure artists are fairly remunerated.

Along with their mission statement, the efforts seem to be focused towards not only admitting there is no technological solution to the problems artists already face, but that users would be “willing to pay for music if they can be sure that the money is going to the artists whose work they enjoy.”

File sharing itself is not illegal; what is shared, exactly, could be. With BitTorrent being used to distribute emerging artists’ music on a wide and free scale, or services such as BBC iPlayer which rely on peer-to-peer technology to reduce the load on the central services - file sharing technology cannot be simply eradicated.

Read the rest of this entry »

October 5th, 2009

Hotmail hacked: Thousands of account details published online

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 9:47 am

Categories: Breaking news, Microsoft, Productivity, Security, Windows Live

Tags: MSN Hotmail, Microsoft Windows Live, Phishing, Cyberthreats, Spam, E-mail Providers, Viruses And Worms, Security, Spam And Phishing, Internet

Update (19:55 GMT): added statement from Microsoft at the end.

Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Hotmail accounts have been hacked through phishing sites and published online, according to the BBC.

The news is still breaking but according to Neowin, who first reported the story, Microsoft have enacted a rapid-response protocol to limit the damage.

According to Neowin:

“It appears only accounts used to access Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail have been posted, this includes @hotmail.com, @msn.com and @live.com accounts.

However, considering the Windows Live ID is a single sign-on solution for all Microsoft and Windows Live services, the implications could be a lot greater than first considered.

While phishing is relatively new in the grand scheme of online malware and threats, it seems the tens of thousands of users have mistaken a genuine login page for a fake one, and are now suffering the consequences.

This poses a question I have considered for some time now. There will no doubt be a number of students who have been a victim in this phishing campaign who have been sending and receiving important emails through the service, instead of their own university dedicated system.

Phishing often relies on the service targeted having a massive user base. In comparison to colleges and universities, Hotmail has a greater number of users worldwide, therefore the benefits reaped would be greater.

As a result, it is not clear whether users of Live@edu were targeted, considering the Windows Live ID sign-in process is identical to that of Hotmail. The potential, however, is very much there,

It is unclear at this time whether this is a “proof of concept” come protest-like attack, as the potential to take advantage of these accounts on a personal scale could be endless. But considering the details were published to the wider web, it seems to me it could be a way of alerting people to the consequences of phishing and/or the security of Hotmail.

With the simplicity of the Windows Live ID sign-in screen, to attempt to create a phishing site from this is surprisingly easy. However with the most recent browsers, a clear green bar or similar will indicate that in fact the sign-in screen is secure.

Nevertheless, it is an interesting story which may well see Microsoft bump up their security to Yahoo! anti-phishing standards.

Microsoft’s statement:

“Over the weekend Microsoft learned that several thousand Windows Live Hotmail customers’ credentials were exposed on a third-party site due to a phishing scheme. As always, upon learning of the issue, we immediately requested that the credentials be removed and launched an investigation to determine the impact to customers.

As part of that investigation, we determined that this was not a breach of internal Microsoft data and initiated our standard process of working to help customers regain control of their accounts.”

September 17th, 2009

Office 2010 for students excludes Office Web Apps

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 11:19 am

Categories: Breaking news, Microsoft, Office 14, Productivity, University, Web 2.0, Windows Live, e-Learning

Tags: Web Application, Office Web Apps, Cloud Computing, Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, Zack Whittaker

In a strange and frankly pathetic move on behalf of Microsoft, the Home and Student edition of the next generation of the Microsoft Office suite will not include Office Web Apps.

According to the documentation just released on the Microsoft website, looking through the editions available, Home and Student includes the same applications as Office 2007 but without the Office Web Apps function.

From inspecting the product documentation, Office 2010 Standard and Office 2010 Professional Plus will be providing Office Web Applications licenses.

There is limited access to the Microsoft Office Web Apps, which has been confirmed as the final name for the web applications, through SkyDrive at the moment. Only beta testers with Office 2010 access will be able to use the online office suite.

Office Web Apps seems to be running through SkyDrive rather than a separate service. Users can connect Office already to their Office WorkSpaces which may or may not interlink with SkyDrive, to then access their documents through the web interface.

The limited technical preview will open up the Word Web App, Excel Web App and PowerPoint Web App (as they are now officially known as), and the OneNote Web App will be added soon after. The simple reason is that it is not ready yet.

Support is being provided to Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari users; browsers which support the Silverlight software which is used to render the web applications.

What is interesting, however, is the wording of the answer to their self-provided question:

Are Office Web Apps free? What are the different ways people can get them?
For business use, Office Professional Plus and Office Standard 2010 licenses will each include access to the Office Web Apps. A customer will then be able to run the Office Web Apps on SharePoint 2010. For personal use, Office Web Apps will be available as a free ad-supported service to consumers via Windows Live.

So while the Office Web Apps will still be available for use but will be paid-for by advertisements displayed on the screen.

Live@edu users will be given access to Office Web Apps “soon”, according to Microsoft. The reason they get access before anybody else is explained in my previous post.

• Read more: What Office Web Apps will and won’t do (Ed Bott)
• Read more: Do you really need Office? Really? (Chris Dawson)
• Read more: 10 things to know about Office Web Apps (Mary Jo Foley)

Update: after digging deeper into this, it does seem that though Office 2010 Home and Student will exclude Office Web Apps, the online suite of applications are designed more for the corporate environment - including universities.

Everyone, including students, will still have access to the Office Web Apps for free. The only difference is how they are delivered to the end user. It will be either through Windows Live - for consumers - or through SharePoint - for enterprises. The SharePoint interface will have no advertisements whereas the consumer view in Windows Live will be advert supported.

Again, Live@edu users will still have access through their university networks. However if universities and colleges opt to roll out the more enterprise based Office suite to their client machines, students will have access to Office Web Apps available over the Internet but will be hosted internally.

Internally-hosted Office Web Apps allows integration with existing university network logins, whereas Windows Live will not (Live@edusupports local Active Directory integration). It will also include backup and restore features and groupings for organisation in true SharePoint style.

It is therefore up to the educational establishment to consider Office Web Apps for its users - the students - as opposed to the students buying a copy of Home and Student and having instant access to the web applications.

They still haven’t included Outlook in the Home and Student edition. This is something that still grates me but something that will probably never change.

September 14th, 2009

802.11n approved; Not 'new' and hardly groundbreaking

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 5:21 am

Categories: Breaking news, Hardware, Mobile computing, Next-generation technology, Security, University

Tags: Router, IEEE 802.11n, Wireless Network, Wireless, Wi-Fi, Wireless And Mobility, Zack Whittaker

The next generation wireless network technology has finally been approved today by the IEEE who ratifies new wireless standards. Even though it has been in “draft” in devices for years, the final standard will still work fully with existing devices.

So - considering that 802.11n is now roughly seven years old, why aren’t we as excited as we should be? It isn’t a new technology and hasn’t been for many years, and the cost of an n-router is considerably more than a standard b/g-router.

In relation to 802.11a/b compared to 802.11n, yes there is a clear difference and those adopting should be very happy. But for the home consumer, such as myself, and the university student - oh yeah, such as myself - I am failed to be overly enthusiastic about the new standard.

I bought a Netgear Wireless-N ADSL2+ DGN2000 router only a few weeks ago to get myself a true Media Center experience. My house, unlike many student houses, is built of brick internally so having wireless signals from the top floor to the other was somewhat difficult.

I quickly realised that it wouldn’t give me a full 802.11n experience because the wireless encryption wouldn’t support it. It seems even the manufacturers agree, yet I disagree in that I believe it has nothing to do with the fact, at the time, it wasn’t a ratified standard. From my router setup I see:

• None - can’t be done, the neighbours next door will nick it.
• WEP - only available on b/g wireless modes.
• WPA-PSK - only available on b/g wireless modes.
• WPA2-PSK - only available on b/g wireless modes, or if I have a “high performance client” such as a WN511B I would be able to get maximum performance, ie. 802.11n speeds.
• WPA-802.1x - basically Radius authentication, can’t have that.

So even though I select the “up to 270mbps” option in the wireless network section, it will attempt to push to those very high speeds over the network, but will never reach it as the authentication doesn’t support it.

Perhaps I’ve done something hideously wrong and actually it can all work just fine. But somehow, I am not holding my breath for this new technology.

And with universities offering wireless network across campuses and offices, buildings and companies doing the same, will they adopt to 802.11n technology?

Well, probably not just yet, no. Unless they have a wireless infrastructure in place already, I find it difficult to justify the spending of so much money in removing existing 802.11b/g routers, and then buying new 802.11n routers - even though I’d be buying less of them due to the higher ranges.

The draft specification and both the now ratified standard will have backwards compatibility, but it’s just not cost effective. If you have no wireless network at your establishment, then go with 802.11n to keep the techies happy. But for my university, switching to 802.11n is unlikely as the money spent will last them. The coverage is good enough and will last for a good few years yet.

For my house, the 802.11n router was the only standard powerful enough to blast signals from one side of my house to the other. For that, I am thankful. However, with WiMAX being taken on by universities now, I cannot get too excited over a standard which offers slightly faster local-only speeds and slightly better coverage indoors.

But then again, it is a rainy Monday morning here, and even the birds chirping outside are starting to annoy me. What about you, do you think 802.11n will really take off now it is a ratified standard?

August 25th, 2009

Microsoft and their Photoshop diversity policy

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 2:40 pm

Categories: Breaking news, Microsoft, Weird and wonderful

Tags: Adobe PhotoShop, Microsoft Corp., Strategic Planning, Collaboration, Games, Strategy, Management, Personal Technology, Zack Whittaker

Microsoft are once again showing their fantastic Photoshopping skills. Through producing two identical pages for their Business Productivity infrastructure, they copied and pasted (and translated) the US page to Polish, but in the process they Photoshopped a man of Afro-Caribbean ethnicity to a Caucasian businessman.

In my way of thinking, they could well have done this because the ethnic makeup of Poland is almost entirely Caucasian Polish citizens, so the image appeals more to the culture. But through this they have opened themselves up to ridicule and possibly accusations of discrimination.

Nevertheless, on a simple level we can at least laugh at this as one of Microsoft’s more obvious and public cock-ups. And as Elliot Harrison of Neowin pointed out (as he is sat next to me at the time of writing; he is my best friend after all), they could have taken the effort to Photoshop the hand according to the corresponding skin tone.

You can visit the Microsoft US page and the Microsoft Poland page, and play a quick game of spot the difference.

August 15th, 2009

Leaked upcoming BlackBerry OS screenshots reveal new features

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 4:05 pm

Categories: Breaking news, Mobile computing, Multimedia, Next-generation technology, Productivity

Tags: Operating System, Media, RIM BlackBerry, Handhelds, Operating Systems, Hardware, Software, Zack Whittaker

News is spreading quickly within the underground BlackBerry community of a leak within Research in Motion, the company that makes the phone, of the latest BlackBerry operating system. Designed for the Curve, the new OS (which has been rumored for some time) could easily be the upcoming release for other models such as the popular Bold.

Intrepid student that I am, I downloaded it and installed it on my Curve 8900, and through the perfectly seamless upgrade transition, I have discovered a bunch of new features which not only progresses what these devices can do on a software level, but also show a little more about where RIM is going and the connections it is making with other companies - Google, for example.

To be honest, it’s not easy seeing what’s new in the settings unless I constantly switch back and forth between the latest released BlackBerry OS and the leaked one. I can’t be bothered with that, so some of what you see below may already be old-hat (and evidently, I haven’t noticed since owning my phone).

Gallery
To see a comprehensive screenshot gallery of the new features and items in the leaked BlackBerry OS 5.0 release, head on over this way.

What is in the new BlackBerry Curve (v5.0.0.130) operating system so far?

• Today screen: which includes your latest messages, missed calls and your upcoming calendar;
• Default account management: allowing you to choose service books for specific and priority calendars and message servers;
• GPS management: including location aiding which bridges location accuracy using the network and easing the burden on the battery without using GPS all the time;
• New icons: still the same user experience as before so it won’t throw you off but more precise icons;

• TTD support: telecommunications device for the deaf;
• Enhanced call quality: such as default call volume, handset and headset call quality;
• Smart dialling: including office access extensions and rules which apply;
• Easier wiping: a simple yet secure way of removing certain bits or all data from your BlackBerry;
• Advanced profile settings: simpler categorised tones and alerts with more complex combination of settings;
• Voice dialling improvements: with playback name, speed and volume settings;
• New media folder: separating out your media into distinct areas instead of a media center;
• Enhanced searching: much clearer in what you are searching for with a white-on-black search bar;
• Details on media: picture names and date taken highlighted on pictures taken with the camera;
• Web browser improvements: a better looking start screen with address bar and search functions;
• Customisable web search: select from pre-configured search engines (Yahoo! by default, probably won’t be now this has happened) or configure your own;
• Embedded media support: integrating embedded media into your mobile browsing experience;
• Google Gears included: allowing online and offline sessions to merge to speed up browsing;

• Send/share files easier: sending and sharing files are now easier with a dedicated included application;
• Documents to Go updated: although at the moment it just looks like the icons;
• Better power management: options to turn off or full power off, and scheduled turn-on times;
• Music statistics: showing you how much music you have, where and in which area;
• Redesigned music player: more space for automatically downloaded album art;
• Try-before-apply settings: letting the user pick their alert and notification settings and test it there and then to make sure it is right;
• Home screen preferences: lets you set the download folder, change the home screen layout, set the theme or wallpaper and reset the icon arrangement all from one screen.

There is no word on when the new operating system will be released, or even if it will indeed be available for current models. It could well be a new operating system for newer models which we have yet to discover, but either way, I’ll be keeping my eye out for any more changes or developments.

What do you want to see in the new BlackBerry OS?

August 12th, 2009

Essential student Office applications brought to Nokia phones

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 9:48 am

Categories: Breaking news, Microsoft, Mobile computing, Office 14, Productivity, University, e-Learning

Tags: Phone, Nokia Corp., Mobile, Microsoft Corp., E-mail, Microsoft Office, Telecom & Utilities, Online Communications, Office Suites, Software

Just announced in an online press conference, news of which broke yesterday, Microsoft and Nokia have formed an alliance to create and develop a slimmed-down Microsoft Office suite designed for Nokia mobile phones.

Both Nokia and Microsoft will begin designing and building the software together. It will essentially be Office Mobile for Windows Mobile but ported to the rival operating system on Nokia phones which run the Symbian operating system.

I’ve used Nokia smartphones from the age of 16 and while they have their ups and downs, over time they are a pretty well all-rounded set of devices. The problem is that they don’t work under “Mac conditions” - a description of hardware which is specifically designed for the hardware it serves, making the interaction between the two absolutely seamless and without (or at least with little) flaws or bugs. The BlackBerry also works under these conditions, making the device so robust in hardware and software interaction.

During the press conference they kept going on about “enterprise this” and “enterprise that”, but failed to mention or seemingly take into consideration the effects on another major mobile market share - the quintessential student.

Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote will be the main applications which will be offered in this alliance. These, of course, are the core applications for Microsoft Office and at least one of these applications will  have been used by every student at a university today.

Exchange technology will be thrown in to allow email technology to work with non-Exchange native devices, which will be a relief to a vast minority of users who struggle to connect their Nokia phones to their university email service, without a third-party application.

Productivity and collaboration - two very boring business-type words which makes the average person fall into comatose - will be explored in this deal, such as enabling instant messaging will allow two people to work on something across campus or even at opposite ends of a lecture theatre.

For those who have the pleasure of having a virtual-learning environment which runs on SharePoint Server will be delighted to hear mobile access to these intranet and extranet sites will also be supported.

OneNote will be included in the Office applications for Nokia phones, which will be of great relief to students who increasingly use the application to manage their work and studying lives.

After using Office Mobile for Windows Mobile for a number of months last year, I found the features didn’t stretch the imagination too much. I can understand there isn’t too much you can plug into such a small application but a stretch wouldn’t go amiss. Formatting, bullet points, and a send-elsewhere feature - allowing you to send over-the-air to Office web applications (when it is released) or to your university email inbox - would be a fine feature to include.

But what Nokia/Microsoft should avoid doing is releasing a trial or “read only” office suite pre-installed onto phones which is exactly what Research in Motion does. While there is no doubt it is useful having document readers on your phone, you don’t really want to be in a position where you have to pay for a licence key to upgrade to a version which opens up all of the features of reading and writing. This makes good business sense, but really drives the consumer potty.

As a professional and a consumer, provided the time and effort goes into making the applications stable and work without a hitch (which Microsoft seems to fail at doing at the best of times) then they won’t go wrong. To me, they have already made a bold step by partnering with Nokia to assist in writing the applications to ensure that those who know the operating system details inside and out can make the software to the highest of quality.

The Office applications will be available for Nokia E-series phones (at first, anyway, then widely throughout afterwards) will be expected to be available next year, although no announcement was made of exactly when, nor how they would distribute or whether they would charge for it.