Dell to restate earnings ... Three indicted on software piracy ... Skype problems continue

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Skype problems may continue throughout the day
News: Dell to restate results after finding manipulation
News: Three indicted on software piracy charges
News: Nokia asks U.S. to ban import of Qualcomm products
News: PC and software sales boost HPs revenue, profit
Unix Tip: Redirecting standard error in Perl
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Top 10 science moments in 'The Simpsons'


NEWS UPDATES

Skype problems may continue throughout the day
Skype Ltd. is still trying to restore service to millions of its customers almost 24 hours after they began to experience problems logging in to the VOIP service.

Dell to restate results after finding manipulation
Dell Inc. will restate its earnings for fiscal years 2003 through 2006 and the first quarter of 2007 after an internal audit found that certain employees had changed corporate account balances in order to meet quarterly financial targets, the company said Thursday.

Three indicted on software piracy charges
Three Florida men were indicted Thursday on charges related to selling millions of dollars worth of counterfeit software through several Web sites, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Nokia asks U.S. to ban import of Qualcomm products
Nokia Corp. wants the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to ban the import of Qualcomm Inc. chipsets that allegedly infringe on five patents held by the Finnish handset maker.

PC and software sales boost HPs revenue, profit
Hewlett-Packard Co.'s PC business and software sales from its Mercury Interactive acquisition helped produce net profit of $1.8 billion, for a 29 percent increase, with a 16 percent boost in revenue in the fiscal third quarter, according to financial results released Thursday.

Solaris on z mainframes next on the agenda for IBM, Sun
As IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. laid out a new agreement to have more IBM x86 servers and blades run on Solaris, the two companies were already looking ahead to another partnership, which could see IBM mainframes support the Sun operating system.


UNIX TIP

Redirecting standard error in Perl
By Sandra Henry-Stocker, ITworld.com

There are numerous ways to redirect standard error in a Perl script. You can redirect the output from one particular command, you can combine standard error with standard out so that the two are handled together or you can send all standard error to the bit bucket. None of these techniques depends on what the person running the script does. Instead, they can all be set up in your Perl scripts. Let's take a look at how this works.

Read the full article here.


PODCAST

Today's IT News Audio Update
Skype outage appaears to be over ... Dell to restate earnings .... IBM to put Sun's Solaris on more servers

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

She's a 10

* Top ten easiest-to-implement green technologies that already exist
* Ten greatest legal battles in technology
* Top 10 science moments in 'The Simpsons'

Subscribe to the ITwhirled alert - weird tech news direct to your inbox.

New tool exposes self-edits in Wikipedia ... Sun, IBM ink OS agreement ... Bug hits Skype network

HIGHLIGHTS

News: New tool exposes self-edits in Wikipedia
News: Sun, IBM ink OS agreement
News: Diebold fails to sell e-voting subsidiary
News: Bug hits Skype Internet telephone network
News: iPod woes could leave executives singing prison blues
Opinion: The rush of tools to the hand
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Google mistakes own blog for spam, deletes it


NEWS UPDATES

New tool exposes self-edits in Wikipedia
A word of caution about editing entries "anonymously" in Wikipedia: a tool has been developed that can show who made the changes.

Sun, IBM ink OS agreement
Longtime rivals IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. have signed an agreement related to operating systems technologies, the two companies said Wednesday.

Diebold fails to sell e-voting subsidiary
Diebold Inc. has been unable to sell its electronic voting subsidiary, and has slashed its full-year revenue expectations for Diebold Election Systems due to controversy surrounding e-voting security, the company said Thursday.

Bug hits Skype Internet telephone network
A software bug has affected Skype Ltd.'s peer-to-peer network, preventing users in some parts of the world from logging on to its widely used VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service.

iPod woes could leave executives singing prison blues
Nine executives at Inventec Appliances Corp. could face jail time for failing to reveal plans by Apple Inc. to reduce iPod orders to the company in a timely manner.

NSA spying program argued at court hearing
A U.S. appeals court agreed on Wednesday to weigh a government motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the National Security Agency (NSA) monitored phone lines and e-mails without a warrant, but judges asked a government lawyer tough questions over the issue.


OPINION

The rush of tools to the hand
By Sean McGrath, ITworld.com

I think there is a universal law that goes something like this:

The degree to which information technology can
truly help problem X is inversely proportional
to the enthusiasm with which the average young
software developer approaches the problem.

Maybe "universal law" is a bit high here? How about "rule of thumb"? Yes, that's better. Example? Personal productivity. "How hard can it be?", says the typical enthusiastic young software developer. "You have meetings, calendar appointments, notes, TODO lists, contact list, task lists, expense recording...Just a whole bunch of lists really. How hard can it be to get a computer application to manage that sort of thing?"

Read the full article here.


PODCAST

Today's IT news audio update
U.S. court to consider dismissal of wiretapping suit ... Xandros licenses messaging protocols from Microsoft ... SingTel to get stake in Taiwan's Far EasTone

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Google mistakes own blog for spam, deletes it
Readers of Google's Custom Search Blog were handed a bit of a surprise last week when the Web site was temporarily removed from the blogosphere. The problem? Google had mistakenly identified its own blog as a spammer's site and deleted it.

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Citrix to acquire XenSource for $500M ... Yahoo replaces Google as top portal

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Citrix to acquire XenSource for $500M
News: Researchers use ionic wind to keep chips cool
News: VMware the bright spot on a gray Wall Street day
News: Vulnerability uncovered within Yahoo Messenger
News: Novell doesn't want to be the next SCO
Windows Tip: Annotating web content
Podcast: Today's IT news update
ITwhirled: Bloggers eye union membership


NEWS UPDATES

Citrix to acquire XenSource for $500M
Citrix Systems Inc. plans to acquire virtualization vendor XenSource Inc. for approximately $500 million to enable the application delivery software vendor to enter both the server and desktop virtualization markets.

Researchers use ionic wind to keep chips cool
Researchers at Purdue University have demonstrated an ionic wind engine that promises to reduce the heat generated by semiconductors at a substantially faster rate than is possible with traditional cooling technologies.

VMware the bright spot on a gray Wall Street day
VMware Inc.'s initial public offering of stock was a happy side note to a tough day on Wall Street Tuesday.

Vulnerability uncovered within Yahoo Messenger
A new vulnerability in Yahoo Inc.'s instant messenger program can potentially cause unwanted code to run on a PC, according to security researchers.

Novell doesn't want to be the next SCO
Now that it has scored a major win for Linux in its legal battle with The SCO Group Inc., Novell Inc. has no interest in becoming like the company it just defeated and won't mount any copyright-infringement claims over Unix, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Ask a penguin to see which way Linux wind blows
The nonprofit Linux Foundation has unveiled the Linux Weather Forecast, a Web site aimed at giving people a better sense of the status of specific Linux kernel projects.

Gartner predicts strong interest in software as service
Software as a service is forecast by Gartner to grow at 22.1 percent until 2011 for the aggregate enterprise application software markets -- more than double the 9 percent growth rate expected in the market as a whole.

Hosting customers say no to shared servers
Hosting providers offering virtual servers could be barking up the wrong tree, according to Rackspace. Virtualization is not yet ready for the big time, and is unlikely to save its users money, the hosting company claimed.


WINDOWS TIP

Annotating web content
By Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

It's easy to annotate a Word doc with Ink, but what if I need to annotate a Web page? For example, say there's a long Microsoft Knowledge Base article I need to read through and annotate -- how I can I annotate a Web page? I've been doing it the hard way until I discovered this trick.

Read the full article here.


PODCAST

Today's IT news audio update
VMware stock rises sharply on debut ... Yahoo replaces Google as top portal ... Nokia offers to replace 46 million batteries


ITWHIRLED

Bloggers eye union membership
A cadre of left-leaning (and, somewhat bafflingly, self-employed) bloggers is seeking to form or join a union. "You're constantly scanning for news. Your arm and neck and shoulder are wearing out because you're constantly using a mouse," says one, justifying the push for unionization. Keep your eyes peeled for pajama-clad persons forming picket lines of one in front of their own homes.

Subscribe to the ITwhirled alert - weird tech news direct to your inbox.

VMware sets IPO price at $29 ... Oracle announces 11g pricing ... Nokia says 46 million batteries may overheat

HIGHLIGHTS
News: Nokia says 46 million batteries may overheat
News: Oracle to charge for four 11g database add-ons
News: Microsoft trumps Google on free e-mail storage limit
News: VMware IPO price set at $29 per share
News: Microsoft reorganizes around aQuantive acquisition
Interview: Jimmy Wales talks on the future of Wikimedia
Podcast: Today's IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Sweaty man electrocuted by PC


NEWS UPDATES

Nokia says 46 million batteries may overheat
Nokia Corp. is offering to replace 46 million batteries made by another
company for use in its mobile phones because of a risk of overheating,
Nokia said on Tuesday.

Oracle to charge for four 11g database add-ons
Oracle Corp. has issued details on pricing for its new 11g enterprise
database, with the vendor making some of the most talked-about features
available as extra-cost add-ons.

Microsoft trumps Google on free e-mail storage limit
Microsoft Corp. is increasing the storage limit for its Web-based e-mail
service, surpassing competitor Google Inc.'s limit but far short of
Yahoo Inc.'s unlimited storage.

VMware IPO price set at $29 per share
VMware Inc. set the price for its Tuesday initial public offering at
US$29 per share, the top end of the range of starting prices that the
software virtualization company had forecast.

Microsoft reorganizes around aQuantive acquisition
Microsoft Corp. has appointed the former CEO of aQuantive Inc. to head
up a new division devoted to serving advertisers and publishers, moves
that are part of the company's close of its acquisition of the digital
media and advertising services firm.

Microsoft questions FCC's 'white spaces' decision
The FCC on July 31 said a wireless prototype submitted by Microsoft and
other members of the White Spaces Coalition interfered with cable
television channels and therefore would not be licensed for use. But
Microsoft claims that the device was malfunctioning when the FCC tested
it.


INTERVIEW

Jimmy Wales talks on the future of Wikimedia
The role Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, plays at the organization
that supports the user generated and edited encyclopedia is changing as
he shifts more of his time to activities in the wiki and open source
communities, and shares time with his for-profit venture, Wikia Inc. In
this interview, Wales discusses his changing role at Wikimedia, plans
for the future, and other topics.


PODCAST

IT news audio update
VMware sets IPO price at $29 ... Critics sound warnings over German
antihacker law ... Oracle to announce 11g pricing today

More podcasts


ITWHIRLED

Sweaty man electrocuted by PC
Hint for PC users: if you think your computer is too hot, maybe removing
the case and exposing the electronic innards and dangerous power source
isn't the best idea. But if you simply must do so, perhaps you shouldn't
keep your sweaty, naked flesh too close to said innards.

Subscribe to the ITwhirled alert - weird tech news direct to your inbox.

SCO down but not out in Linux case ... XenSource updates virtualization software

HIGHLIGHTS

News: Qwest names new telecom veteran CEO
News: SCO says it's down but not out in Linux case
News: XenSource new release closes gap with VMware
News: AT&T wiretapping case headed for hearing
News: Microsoft loses key US OpenXML vote
Interview: Jimmy Wales talks on the future of Wikimedia
Podcast: IT news audio update
ITwhirled: Second Life prepares for its first bank run


NEWS UPDATES

Qwest names new telecom veteran CEO
Qwest Communications International Inc. has named telecommunications industry veteran Edward Mueller chairman and CEO, replacing the retiring Richard Notebaert.

SCO says it's down but not out in Linux case
A U.S. district court judge ruled Friday that SCO does not own the copyrights to the Unix operating system, undermining its cases against both Novell and IBM Corp. The ruling was seen by many as the death-knell in SCO's legal fight, but the SCO said it may not be done fighting yet.

XenSource new release closes gap with VMware
An upgraded version of the XenSource Inc. virtualization hypervisor out Monday closes the features gap with market leader VMware Inc., but a wide market share gap between the two companies remains, an industry analyst says.

AT&T wiretapping case headed for hearing
A federal appeals court will hear arguments next Wednesday on whether to stop a class-action privacy suit that is based on allegations that the government and AT&T Inc. have been working together in an illegal wiretapping program.

Microsoft loses key US OpenXML vote
The executive committee of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) fell one vote shy of the nine required to approve Microsoft's Open XML standard. It voted 8 to 7 in favor of approval with one abstention, the group announced Thursday.

Spam surge sways stock market
Last week saw the Internet's biggest-ever spam surge in a single day, and also offered a lesson on why "pump and dump" stock-market spam campaigns have become so prevalent, according to Postini.


INTERVIEW

Jimmy Wales talks on the future of Wikimedia
The role Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, plays at the organization that supports the user generated and edited encyclopedia is changing as he shifts more of his time to activities in the wiki and open source communities, and shares time with his for-profit venture, Wikia Inc. In this interview, Wales discusses his changing role at Wikimedia, plans for the future, and other topics.


PODCAST

SCO down but not out in Linux case ... XenSource updates virtualization software ... ISPs complain about BBC media player


ITWHIRLED

Second Life prepares for its first bank run
Want to put some money in a bank that promises no-strings 43 percent
interest? What if the "bank" is in what's essentially a MMORP, where
there's no equivalent to the FDIC? What could possibly go wrong?