Did you get an e-mail from Microsoft like this!!

On two computers I have with Legal Windows, VISTA on this computer and XP on a netbook
They are both Stuck I dowloaded 7 RC onto a disk legally and ran it sometimes usualy on SUN virtual Box I am also for Legal Software but do I deserve this:
It’s time to upgrade from the Windows 7 Release Candidate

While most people who tested Windows 7 have now moved to the final version, some are still running the Release Candidate. If you haven’t moved yet, it’s time to replace the RC.

Starting on March 1, 2010 your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Your work will not be saved during the shutdown.

The Windows 7 RC will fully expire on June 1, 2010. Your PC running the Windows 7 RC will continue shutting down every two hours and your files won’t be saved during shutdown. In addition, your wallpaper will change to a solid black background with a persistent message on your desktop. You’ll also get periodic notifications that Windows isn’t genuine. That means your PC may no longer be able to obtain optional updates or downloads requiring genuine Windows validation.

To avoid interruption, please reinstall a prior version of Windows or move to Windows 7. In either case, you’ll need to do a custom (clean) install to replace the RC. As with any clean installation, you’ll need to back up your data then reinstall your applications and restore the data. For more details about replacing the RC, see the Knowledge Base

Linux Mint 9 Isadora in May

Linux Mint 9: “Isadora”

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:18:12 +0000

Linux Mint 9, based on the upcoming Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, will be released in May this year under the codename “Isadora”. Of Greco-Latin origin, “Isadora” means “Gift from Isis”.

Microsoft Warns About 17-Year-Old Windows Bug

Microsoft Warns About 17-Year-Old Windows Bug
By Stuart J. Johnston
January 22, 2010

Microsoft acknowledged that a security researcher has located a 17-year-old hole in Windows that could be used to take over a user's system and said it plans a patch.

However, compromising a user's PC would not be easy, requiring physical access to the machine as well as authenticated password access, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) said in a Security Advisory Wednesday.

The hole, which originated with the release of Windows NT back in 1993 and is present in every 32-bit version of Windows since, including Windows 7, was discovered by Tavis Ormandy, a Google security team member in Switzerland.

Ormandy claimed in a posting to the Full Disclosure security mailing list earlier this week that the hole is in a portion of Windows originally meant to enable NT to run 16-bit MS-DOS applications.

The problem lies in what is known as the Virtual DOS Machine or VDM, which is meant to allow NT-based versions of Windows run 16-bit x86 programs. By manipulating what's called the kernel stack, an attacker can elevate his or her user privileges to an administrator’s level in order to take over the user's system.

Ormandy said that he notified Microsoft of the hole in June but, after receiving no response other than an acknowledgement, decided to publish his discussion as well as a proof-of-concept exploit.

That got Microsoft's attention and, on Wednesday, the software giant released the Security Advisory regarding the problem.

Microsoft noted that the proof-of-concept has not triggered any real world attacks so far. Partly, that is related to the requirement that any attack be carried out locally, not remotely. For that reason, the hole is not as dangerous as most zero-day vulnerabilities. Some Windows users are not at any risk

One piece of good news is that users of 64-bit versions of Windows are not affected. Many new PCs sold today are shipped with 64-bit Windows 7 preloaded, meaning they are not at risk, according to Microsoft's Security Advisory.

Microsoft's Security Advisory contains a workaround, which is to disable the use of the 16-bit VDM. That should have little impact on most users since the feature is rarely used today.

Even Ormandy played down how broad the hole's effect might be.

"The primary audience of this advisory is expected to be domain administrators and security professionals," Ormandy's post stated.

Microsoft normally patches zero-day vulnerabilities as quickly as possible, especially if they critically affect users' security.

For example, Microsoft patched a previously unknown zero-day that surfaced last week in attacks on Google China with an "out-of-band" fix Thursday.

Microsoft said it is working on a patch for the problem but hasn’t decided yet whether it will be released as an out-of-band fix or during a regular Patch Tuesday cycle.

However, since it took 17 years to discover the bug in the first place, and the additional requirement that a hacker be physically in control of a PC being attacked, Microsoft's security response team may view the hole as less likely than most to be seriously exploited.

Stuart J. Johnston is a contributing writer at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals

It is all Linux- Android- Google Phone -Chrome OS

http://developer.android.com/guide/basics/what-is-android.html
It is all linux and Thin Clients and sometimes Disinformation about this.
Android , Google Phone Nexus One. Google Chrome OS.

Oracle Claims Victory Over EC; Says Sun Will Sell Clouds- from sys-con.com

Oracle Claims Victory Over EC; Says Sun Will Sell Clouds

Oracle Keynote at Cloud Expo

Cloud Computing Expo - Oracle expects the European Commission to wave its acquisition of Sun through next month MySQL and all without any annoying conditions.

Oracle president Safra Catz, who’s been wrestling with the EC, said so when the company posted its fiscal second-quarter results Thursday, another reason Oracle’s going to have a Merry Christmas.

Catz took a bunch of Oracle users to an EC hearing a week ago to buttress the company’s claims that the EC had put words in users’ mouths to support the theory of harm it manufactured to try to stop Oracle from getting MySQL.

Oracle Named Exclusive Diamond Sponsor of Cloud Expo 2010

The meeting was backed by a write-in campaign from hundreds of users as well as a letter from the US Senate and a public statement from the Justice Department.

A grateful Catz said, “I want to thank all of our customers for the overwhelming support they have given us during this process.”

After further discussions with the agency over the weekend Oracle Monday made a few relatively non-restrictive promises regarding MySQL so the EC could leave the stage with its dignity intact. It still has until January 27. It will be curious to see it takes that long.

Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison, who blamed the EC’s foot-dragging for Sun losing $100 million a month to rivals said he expects “Sun to rapidly improve both its market share and margins once this merger closes,” claiming that “Sun’s new Sparc Solaris system and Sun’s new Exadata database machine both run the Oracle database faster than IBM’s fastest computer.”

Ellison reckons the Exadata-style business is the future of computing and worth billions of dollars.

During a conference call Ellison said Sun had no talent for selling high-volume, low-margin x86 machines and would leave that business to Dell and HP. Instead it will focus on the high-performance end peddling SMP machines and private clouds based on both Sun Solaris operating system and Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux and complete with integrated storage and networking.

Oracle’s Q2 beat the Street and the numbers hint that enterprise spending might be coming back into fashion again.

Oracle earned $1.46 billion, or 29 cents a share, up 15%, on revenues up 4% to $5.9 billion, pushing past the $5.69 billion expected. On a non-GAAP basis it realized 39 cents a share, three cents better than expected.

New software license revenues were up 2% to $1.7 billion, versus the $1.54 billion expected. Software updates and support revenues were up 14% to $3.2 billion.

The company’s operating income was up 10% to $2.2 billion and operating margin was up 200 basis points to 37%. Operating cash flow on a trailing 12-month basis was $8.7 billion, up 7%.

In a prepared statement, CFO Jeff Epstein said, “We delivered results which were substantially better than we expected on both the top and bottom line, growing non-GAAP operating margins by 280 basis points to 49%, the highest Q2 non-GAAP operating margin in our history.”

Oracle claimed it took market share from SAP in every region around the world for the fourth consecutive quarter. President Charles Phillips said that in constant currency, “our applications business grew 1% in the Americas and 2% in Asia Pacific versus a negative 35% and negative 34% respectively for SAP.”

Catz said Sun, for all its losses, is still expected to bring Oracle $1.5 billion in operating income. Leaving Sun out – Oracle will redo its predictions next month – she forecast software license revenues to grow this quarter somewhere between minus 1% to up 9% and revenue to be up 3%-6% with non-GAAP ESP of 36 cents-38 cents

© 2008 SYS-CON Media Inc.

In 2 years very fast WIFI

The future of WiFi: gigabit speeds and beyond

Now that 802.11n has been officially ratified, attention is turning to the next big thing in wireless networking: gigabit WiFi. Ars explores the future of WiFi and how it may give gigabit Ethernet a run for its money.

By Glenn Fleishman | Last updated December 7, 2009 8:15 AM
Press Title for full article

In a couple of years, crossing the 1Gbps threshold with a WiFi access point will be routine. That access point will likely have two radios, one for each major spectrum band, and support a host of older flavors for compatibility. Eventually, WiFi will approach the robustness and speed needed to make it a completely viable replacement for Ethernet for most users.

In today's pipeline are optional enhancements to 802.11n that have been in the works since the standard stabilized at the IEEE engineering group nearly three years ago. These enhancements will increase range and performance by up to a couple orders of magnitude, offering raw data rates of 450 Mbps and 600 Mbps.

The slated improvements will also correct for black holes, where current 802.11n gear's signals don't reach unless an excessive amount of overlapping devices are installed at relatively high expense. Even better, the boosts to 802.11n are just the start. A new IEEE committee is working on fast WiFi that will hit a raw encoding rate of 1 gigabit per second (Gbps).

(more at the Original article on the link above)

Oracle Announces Oracle® Rapid Planning

Oracle Announces Oracle® Rapid Planning

New Value Chain Planning Product Promotes Real-Time Decision-Making

Redwood Shores, Calif. – November 16, 2009

News Facts

To improve companies’ ability to quickly adapt to unplanned supply chain events, Oracle today announced the availability of Oracle® Rapid Planning.

With Oracle Rapid Planning, customers will benefit from real-time, event driven planning and simulation that delivers quick, predictive and actionable intelligence, enabling planners to react quickly to changes.

Complementary to the existing suite of Oracle Value Chain Planning applications, Oracle Rapid Planning features out-of-the-box integration with the Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. It also supports integration with ERP systems such as SAP or other legacy systems. This enables customers to leverage their existing IT investments, lower installation costs and maximize value.

Oracle Rapid Planning Drives Real-Time, Profitable Supply Chain Decisions

Companies must react quickly to events such as a sudden increase in demand, an urgent engineering change, an unexpected production shortfall or a supplier quality issue. Oracle Rapid Planning enables customers to benefit from:

Improved Planning Speed and Flexibility

Fast, event-driven, simultaneous material and capacity planning enables quick decision-making.

Rapid incremental simulation and embedded analytics enables user-driven “what-if” scenario analysis and plan performance evaluation and comparison.

Mass edit and manipulation of items, bills, routings, resources, capacity, supply and demand data promotes quick, user-driven “what if” capabilities, without requiring changing data in the ERP system.

Increased Planner Productivity

Next generation productivity enhancing spreadsheet style user interface supports configurable workspaces, filters and saved queries, and simultaneous analysis of exceptions, supply chain pegging, performance indicators and material and resource requirements.

Comprehensive Modeling Capabilities

Comprehensive configurable exception management increases planners’ productivity and response by focusing on the most important problem first.

Comprehensive supply chain constraint modeling and decision automation with support for alternates (resources, process, facilities, ship methods, components), substitution, lead times, order modifiers, and priority-based ranking enables improved plan quality.

Standards-based Solution

Standards-based technology enables scalability and lower cost deployment.

A nice Blog in Hebrew about Social Network Marketing

Lipaz Mooskat
http://lipazmooskat.blogspot.com I discovered today and Hebrew Readers will like.

IBM launched the IBM Cloud Academy

IBM today launched the IBM Cloud Academy, a global forum for educators, researchers and information technology (IT) personnel from the education industry to pursue cloud computing initiatives, develop skills and share best practices for reducing operating costs while improving quality and access to education

Dvir Reznik on Talking Innovation at IBM

From Dvir:

• "Do smarter people make smarter search engines?
• Is it all about context?
• Shouldn't non-techies be able to create online applications?"