BURLINGAME, CALIF. -
Google's shadow grew a bit longer on Monday.
The Internet kingpin said it plans to broker advertisements for some NBC Universal cable channels. But the company faces more obstacles than when it launched its initial advertising program: rivals are experimenting with more radical approaches and the Department of Justice may be gearing up to probe whether the search giant is engaging in anticompetitive practices.
The multiyear partnership between Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) and NBC is the first attempt by Google to aggressively go after TV ads. Last year the company began experimenting with an auction system for selling TV ads. Google plans to begin by handling adds for NBC channels such as MSNBC, Oxygen and Sci Fi.
As part of the deal, Google and NBC, which is owned by General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ), will develop new metrics to help advertisers "gain access to viewership data at an unprecedented scale," the companies said in a statement. "With this data, advertisers can better understand what consumers are responding to and make real-time adjustments to their campaign to maximize their ROI."
Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed but the companies said they will "share in all the ad revenue and explore innovative ways to expand the partnership in the future, including adapting the platform to add local inventory."
Regulators are increasingly taking note of the Mountain View, Calif., company's growing dominance in online advertising in light of its recent ad pact with Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ), which would give the companies more than 80% of the lucrative search-ad market. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the U.S. Justice Department has been deposing witnesses and issuing subpoenas that explore the implications of the deal. It has also hired Sanford Litvack, a former Disney (nyse: DIS - news - people ) vice chairman and one of the nation's top litigators, to review the findings and help determine if the government should challenge the proposed deal or even Google's own conduct in online advertising.
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Sunday, September 14, 2008
Bharti Airtel launches Innovation Fund
NEW DELHI, INDIA: Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's leading telecom services provider, today announced the launch of the Airtel Innovation Fund aimed at promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in the field of telecommunications.
The objective of the fund is to provide opportunities to entrepreneurs with a vision to build business based on innovative ideas.
This is the first-ever fund in India and will have an initial corpus of Rs 200 crore led and administered by Bharti Airtel.
"This fund will be a catalyst in further promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship in Indian telecom as well as development of exciting technologies for the benefit of customers", Manoj Kohli, CEO and joint managing director of Bharti Airtel said at a media conference here.
"Bharti Airtel has been a pioneer in the India telecom sector and revolutionized the market with innovative products like Lifetime Prepaid," he said.
The Airtel Innovation Fund's intent is to provide seed money to entrepreneurs who may not otherwise be able to access funds, and to serve as a vehicle to promote developments in technology, content and software applications in the area of telecommunications.
"Bharti Airtel has demonstrated that Indian entrepreneurship can create world-class companies. The Airtel Innovation Fund is a pioneering step to promote innovation and help budding entrepreneurs realize their dreams," said Bharti Airtel's chairman and managing director, Sunil Bharti Mittal, in a press release.
Bharti Airtel said the company would start receiving the applications by today itself.
The objective of the fund is to provide opportunities to entrepreneurs with a vision to build business based on innovative ideas.
This is the first-ever fund in India and will have an initial corpus of Rs 200 crore led and administered by Bharti Airtel.
"This fund will be a catalyst in further promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship in Indian telecom as well as development of exciting technologies for the benefit of customers", Manoj Kohli, CEO and joint managing director of Bharti Airtel said at a media conference here.
"Bharti Airtel has been a pioneer in the India telecom sector and revolutionized the market with innovative products like Lifetime Prepaid," he said.
The Airtel Innovation Fund's intent is to provide seed money to entrepreneurs who may not otherwise be able to access funds, and to serve as a vehicle to promote developments in technology, content and software applications in the area of telecommunications.
"Bharti Airtel has demonstrated that Indian entrepreneurship can create world-class companies. The Airtel Innovation Fund is a pioneering step to promote innovation and help budding entrepreneurs realize their dreams," said Bharti Airtel's chairman and managing director, Sunil Bharti Mittal, in a press release.
Bharti Airtel said the company would start receiving the applications by today itself.
Hackers post Kosovo flag on Serb official site
BELGRADE, SERBIA: Hackers posted the Kosovo flag on the Serbian parliament website in an action to block Serbian government sites, a Belgrade radio station reported on Thursday.
The "Kosova Hackers Group" told visitors to the parliament website that it had also attacked other official sites on Wednesday, including the Serbian army's.
The site looked normal on Thursday and parliament had no comment on the incident.
Serbia does not recognise the independence of its former province of Kosovo and objects to the use of its symbols at international gatherings.
"Those hackers are using programmes that are freely accessible on the Internet and can be downloaded free of charge," Slobodan Markovic, an advisor in the Serbian telecommunications ministry, told Radio B92.
Markovic said Serbian government sites do not have a unique security system but that each ministry decides how to protect the data.
The Daily Press said several other official Internet sites were also under "Kosovo Hackers" attack on the same day, including the Defence Ministry, Commercial Court and Serbian Business Registers Agency.
The "Kosova Hackers Group" told visitors to the parliament website that it had also attacked other official sites on Wednesday, including the Serbian army's.
The site looked normal on Thursday and parliament had no comment on the incident.
Serbia does not recognise the independence of its former province of Kosovo and objects to the use of its symbols at international gatherings.
"Those hackers are using programmes that are freely accessible on the Internet and can be downloaded free of charge," Slobodan Markovic, an advisor in the Serbian telecommunications ministry, told Radio B92.
Markovic said Serbian government sites do not have a unique security system but that each ministry decides how to protect the data.
The Daily Press said several other official Internet sites were also under "Kosovo Hackers" attack on the same day, including the Defence Ministry, Commercial Court and Serbian Business Registers Agency.
India Govt amends 3g policy
NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Department of Telecom (DoT) on Thursday amended the recently announced 3G policy thus allowing any person who holds a Unified Access Service Licence (UASL) or Cellular Mobile Telecom Service Licence or who has previous experience of running 3G telecom services to bid for spectrum.
The amendment also says that CDMA operators will be allotted 3G spectrum through auction. The earlier clause that besides the existing licence holders only those telcos with experience in providing 3G services can bid for the spectrum has bee retained.
DoT has already started the process of appointing an agency to conduct auction of spectrum. The agency is expected to be in place by 30 September.
The DoT amended the norms regarding the annual spectrum charges as well. Now the companies would have to pay it at the rate of one per cent on the "incremental revenue due to 3G services" after a period of one year. The method for calculating this would be notified separately.
Similarly in the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) services, including WiMax services, also the DoT has made amendments and introduced new frequency band of 2.3 GHz band in addition to the previously notified 2.5 GHz band for spectrum allocation.
The new amendment would double the base price for WiMax spectrum to Rs 1,010 crore and allow successful bidders to offer both data and voice services.
According to The Economic Times the larger implication of the 3G policy amendment is that foreign telcos who bag 3G licences can now buy out existing operators who hold 2G radio frequencies, thus enabling them to offer both 3G and 2G services.
Besides, if a foreign player were to bag 3G spectrum and also buy an existing Indian operator, the telco will not have to pay an additional Rs 1,651 crore for the UASL licence.
The amendment also says that CDMA operators will be allotted 3G spectrum through auction. The earlier clause that besides the existing licence holders only those telcos with experience in providing 3G services can bid for the spectrum has bee retained.
DoT has already started the process of appointing an agency to conduct auction of spectrum. The agency is expected to be in place by 30 September.
The DoT amended the norms regarding the annual spectrum charges as well. Now the companies would have to pay it at the rate of one per cent on the "incremental revenue due to 3G services" after a period of one year. The method for calculating this would be notified separately.
Similarly in the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) services, including WiMax services, also the DoT has made amendments and introduced new frequency band of 2.3 GHz band in addition to the previously notified 2.5 GHz band for spectrum allocation.
The new amendment would double the base price for WiMax spectrum to Rs 1,010 crore and allow successful bidders to offer both data and voice services.
According to The Economic Times the larger implication of the 3G policy amendment is that foreign telcos who bag 3G licences can now buy out existing operators who hold 2G radio frequencies, thus enabling them to offer both 3G and 2G services.
Besides, if a foreign player were to bag 3G spectrum and also buy an existing Indian operator, the telco will not have to pay an additional Rs 1,651 crore for the UASL licence.
Paulson Brothers On Either Side Of Lehman Divide
U.S.Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has lots of friends at Lehman Bros.
The former Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS - news - people ) chief executive is close to Lehman Chairman and Chief Executive Richard Fuld. He also knows many of Lehman's bankers from his early years hammering out merger deals.
But Paulson's best friend at Lehman Bros. (nyse: LEH - news - people ) is probably his brother Richard Paulson, who has worked at the now-beleaguered investment bank as a fixed-income salesman for more than a decade. The two brothers, though very different, share a passion for the Chicago Cubs, say people who know them.
Reached on his cellphone, Richard Paulson said: "I have absolutely no comment other than my brother is very professional and the only thing I have talked about with him in the last couple months is the Chicago Cubs. We are big Cubs' fans."
Paulson's family tie could put him in a potentially tricky position as the U.S. government mulls whether it will step in and backstop a buyer of Lehman. As Lehman shares continued to plunge Sept. 11, the bank succumbed to growing pressure and put itself up for sale. The two most likely suitors, Bank of America (nyse: BAC - news - people ) and U.K. bank Barclays (nyse: BCS - news - people ), are seeking help from the Federal Reserve to reach a deal that will fly, it was widely reported (see "Lehman's Bad Deal").
However, there is growing political pressure--both from the U.S. presidential candidates and Congress--for the government to avoid assisting in a bailout of Lehman, much like it did when it helped JPMorgan Chase (nyse: JPM - news - people ) buy Bear Stearns earlier this year. One of the reasons there is little appetite for a government bailout is that just this week Uncle Sam took Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ) into conservatorship, putting it on the hook for $5 trillion of corporate debt owed by those two institutions and mortgage debt guaranteed by them.
The former Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS - news - people ) chief executive is close to Lehman Chairman and Chief Executive Richard Fuld. He also knows many of Lehman's bankers from his early years hammering out merger deals.
But Paulson's best friend at Lehman Bros. (nyse: LEH - news - people ) is probably his brother Richard Paulson, who has worked at the now-beleaguered investment bank as a fixed-income salesman for more than a decade. The two brothers, though very different, share a passion for the Chicago Cubs, say people who know them.
Reached on his cellphone, Richard Paulson said: "I have absolutely no comment other than my brother is very professional and the only thing I have talked about with him in the last couple months is the Chicago Cubs. We are big Cubs' fans."
Paulson's family tie could put him in a potentially tricky position as the U.S. government mulls whether it will step in and backstop a buyer of Lehman. As Lehman shares continued to plunge Sept. 11, the bank succumbed to growing pressure and put itself up for sale. The two most likely suitors, Bank of America (nyse: BAC - news - people ) and U.K. bank Barclays (nyse: BCS - news - people ), are seeking help from the Federal Reserve to reach a deal that will fly, it was widely reported (see "Lehman's Bad Deal").
However, there is growing political pressure--both from the U.S. presidential candidates and Congress--for the government to avoid assisting in a bailout of Lehman, much like it did when it helped JPMorgan Chase (nyse: JPM - news - people ) buy Bear Stearns earlier this year. One of the reasons there is little appetite for a government bailout is that just this week Uncle Sam took Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ) into conservatorship, putting it on the hook for $5 trillion of corporate debt owed by those two institutions and mortgage debt guaranteed by them.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Introducing Chrome
On September 1st, 2008, Google announced its new open source browser, Google Chrome. The introduction of a new web browser by Google, a major player in the web by anyone's standards, has predictably resulted in a flurry of attention, analysis and soothsaying.
The official announcement was preceded by a fair amount of buzz on the internet as the comic introduction that Google made to introduce Chrome made its first appearance before the announcement and before the release of the Windows beta of Chrome on September 2nd, 12pm PDT.
InfoQ has taken some time to compile some of the perspectives and analysis from the community, news media and blogosphere in order to assemble comprehensive coverage of the Google Chrome launch and its impact.
Introducing Chrome
Google introduced the browser through a comic designed for journalists and bloggers, drawn by Scott McCloud, the well-known author of Making Comics. The script was a collaboration between McCloud and the developers themselves, who McCloud interviewed and paraphrased. The comic introduces some of the areas where Google tried to differentiate Chrome from its competition: a focus on serving applications rather than content, a process-oriented approach to achieve a separation between isolated, sandboxed processes, a simplified tab-centric user interface, fast rendering and javascript engines and a built-in incognito browsing mode.
Chrome features a very simple user interface with tabs, an address/navigation bar and an optional toolbar. Although simplified interfaces are a common feature in modern web browsers, Google has taken this a step farther than most of its competitors. As Ars Technica puts it:
Google's approach with Chrome is different. Rather than removing features from existing web browsers, Google has taken its brightly colored forearm and swept the table absolutely clean. Forget about menu separators; why even have a bookmarks menu? Hell, why have a menu bar at all? Start with nothing. Assume nothing. Add features only as needed, and only in service of a well-defined design concept.
It's not that any particular feature of Chrome is so wonderful, or even that the sum of those features puts Safari back on its heels in the browser wars. It's the idea that someone other than Apple has taken such clear leadership in this area. Google Chrome makes Safari's user interface look conservative; it makes Apple look timid. And when it comes to innovation, overall daring counts for a lot more than individual successes or failures on the long-term graph.
This simplified interface is meant to distract less from the primary content: the web site or web application with which the user is interacting. For web applications in particular, Chrome can be stripped down even further with an interface that lacks even the navigation toolbar and dedicated links so that the resulting window looks that much more like an application instead of a web browser. Chrome also ships with Google Gears, whose primary purpose is to extend the capabilities of web applications and make them more like desktop applications, such as allowing them to function even when the user is disconnected from the internet.
Google has given the tabbed interface primary emphasis by placing the tabs at the top of the browser and allowing the tabs to be dragged not only within the frame but outside of it to create new windows or to move a tab from one window to another. These tabs are isolated from each other and sandboxed so that they are treated more like individual applications, where one misbehaving tab won't spoil the experience for the entire web browser. Although the comic introduction talks about process separation in some detail, the Chromium site goes into more detail of the four process models supported by Chromium and their strengths and weaknesses:
For its beta release, Chromium supports four different process models to allow experimentation and measurements, which will help us select a default model that best fits most users.
By default, Chromium uses a separate OS process for each instance of a web site the user visits. However, users can specify command-line switches when starting Chromium to select one of the other architectures: Chromium can instead use one process per web site, or it can isolate each group of connected tabs, or it can place everything in a single process. These models differ in whether they reflect the origin of the content, the browser's user interface, or both.
Topics of processes and threads draw regular controversy and this announcement is no exception.
Chrome also contains a private browsing mode called Incognito which allows the user to browse in a read-only session that doesn't save browser history and whose cookies are erased when the window is closed.
Technology and Internals
The Chrome browser is the result of the Chromium project, which connects the WebKit web browser engine with the new Google V8 JavaScript Engine, the Skia vector graphics engine, and Google Gears.
The WebKit browser engine began its life as a fork of the KDE project's KHTML and KJS engines by Apple, becoming the basis of the Safari browser. WebKit was later re-adopted by KDE. Google already employs WebKit within their Android mobile phone platform, and it became the obvious solution for them. As the comic introduction to Chrome states:
It uses memory efficiently, was easily adapted to embedded devices, and it was easy for new browser developers to learn to make the code base work. Browsers are complex. One of the things done well with WebKit is that it's kept SIMPLE.
The version of WebKit used in the initial Windows beta seems to be WebKit 525.13, which is not the most recent version, and has some security vulnerabilities (see Security below). Some users have also noticed rendering differences from Safari's WebKit rendering to Chrome's, including antialiasing and shadows. This may be the result of the Skia graphics engine used under the hood.
Talking about the integration with WebKit, the Chromium FAQ says:
The Chromium source code includes a copy of the WebKit source. We frequently snapshot against the WebKit tip of tree or specific branches according to our release needs.
Our goal is to reduce the size and complexity of the differences between the copy we maintain in order to work more effectively as a participant in the WebKit community and also to make periodic updates occur more smoothly.
The V8 JavaScript Engine is open-source and hosted on Google Code, but was written for Chrome, rather than adopting an existing JavaScript engine. V8 is written in ~100,000 lines of C++ and can be run standalone or embedded in C++ applications.
The foremost reason for V8's creation seems to be performance. The V8 Design Documentation states, "V8 is ... designed for fast execution of large JavaScript applications." The Chromium Blog on V8 is entitled "The Need for Speed" and states:
Google Chrome features a new JavaScript engine, V8, that has been designed for performance from the ground up. In particular, we wanted to remove some common bottlenecks that limit the amount and complexity of JavaScript code that can be used in Web applications.
V8 claims a number of performance improvements and innovations, from fast property access using hidden classes, dynamic machine code generation and efficient garbage collection (stop-the-world, generational, accurate, compacting), small object hreaders, multi-threaded from the ground up. The team that created V8 was headed by Lars Bak, who, as Avi Bryant says, was "the technical lead for both Strongtalk and the HotSpot Java VM, and a huge contributor to the original Self VM" and has a number of VM-related patents to his name.
V8 is not a virtual machine in the classic sense as Matthieu Riou points out: there's no intermediate representation or byte-code. As a result, you cannot write your own language that compiles to "V8 byte code", although you can cross-compile to JavaScript. Despite this, Dave Griswold believes that V8 could serve as the engine for other dynamic languages:
I think these properties will rapidly make V8 the dominant VM for dynamic languages. It ought to make a great platform for Smalltalk.
Google Gears has also moved into the Chromimum Project, as pointed out in the FAQ:
With Gears as a plug-in to Chromium we're carrying two copies of sqlite and two copies of V8. That's silly. We're integrating the code so Gears can run great in Chromium. We plan to continue to build Gears for other browsers out of the same code base.
Although Google Chrome supports plugins for content handling like Flash and PDF, it does not currently support browser extensions, although that is planned.
History
Niall Kennedy documented the history behind Google Chrome. He starts by describing Google's push for browser enhancements starting with its heavy use of Ajax and working with Ian Hickson on HTML5 and browser 'acid' compliance, through to browser extensions like Google Gears, Browser Sync and Safe Browsing. From there, he talks about Google's Android project with its WebKit browser acquired with Reqwireless, the Skia vector graphics library and the GreenBorder security sandbox. Finally, he describes the Chrome team headed by Ben Goodger and the V8 team headed by Lars Bak.
Wired's Steven Levy also covers some of the back-story behind the development of Chrome with his Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web, tracing its genesis back to 2001:
"The browser matters," CEO Eric Schmidt says. He should know, because he was CTO of Sun Microsystems during the great browser wars of the 1990s. Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin know it, too. "When I joined Google in 2001, Larry and Sergey immediately said, 'We should build our own browser,'" Schmidt says. "And I said no."
Levy covers the initial prototype, the V8 team, and despite some early leaks, the surprise launch:
It's incredible that something as potentially game-changing as a Google browser has stayed under wraps for two years. It wasn't until mid-2007, about a year into the project, that the team let employees outside the group even see what they were doing. At the first of a series of Tech Talks featuring the current prototype (events designed, in part, as a way of recruiting internally for the ever-growing team) the reaction was volcanic. Googlers broke into spontaneous applause when various features, like dragging a tab into a new window, were demo'd. As the number of people who knew about Chrome increased, the inevitable occurred — word did leak out to a blog or two, yet nothing came of those stray items. No reporter put it all together. "I think it was because rumors about Google browsers have been around so long — it's like sightings of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster," Upson says
The Launch: Windows-Only, Carpet-bombing, Privacy, EULA
Google's launch truly began when the comic surfaced, after which there was a blog post and a day's delay before the software beta became available. In the meantime, the comic itself gathered a lot of attention. Josh Evnin applauded the use of "actual Googlers" named in the comic and the way technical topics were both present and well-explained:
And another thing Google did well here was in not trying to over-engineer their explanations of highly technical processes. They simplified their message down to bare essentials, and I felt enlightened after reading this document. Most technical documentation talks down to people, assuming that all the basics are already understood. Google removed some barriers to entry by explaining their new technologies in a way that almost anyone with a little technical know-how can understand. This is something almost every other open source project out there fails at. Technical documentation is far more than simply documentation…it’s an implicit invitation to take part in the experience.
At the end of the day, I’m really impressed at the quality of this documentation. I actually read the entire thing, which is much more than I can say about the technical documentation for any other software I use. Who knew that I could find the difference between multiple threads and multiple processes interesting?
Google Chrome is currenly only available in Beta form on Windows, although other platforms are due soon. Both Mac and Linux versions have been referenced, but there are no explicit dates for their launch. The Mac version of Chromium is eagerly anticipated, and made an appearance in the press when Sergey Brin said the lack of a Mac version was "embarassing". The Mac version of Chrome has been benefiting from the efforts of Mike Pinkerton, the Project Lead and Lead Developer of Camino as well as a Google employee working on Google Desktop for Mac.
Amanda Walker notes on the Google Mac that although the Chrome team includes people with a lot of expertise in particular operating systems, they're still one team, and each member of the team contributes on all platforms. On the current state and progress, Walker wrote:
Right now, both are in the "pieces build and pass tests, but there's no Chromium application yet." While we're working hard and fast on catching up to the Windows version, we're not setting an artificial date for when they'll be ready--we simply can't predict enough to make a solid estimate, and we expect to learn a lot from the Windows public beta as well. On the plus side, since the project is now public, you'll be able to watch (and maybe even contribute to) the progress from week to week. As these versions stabilize, we will create official betas, much as we are now for the Windows version. While we can't give any dates yet, we'll keep everyone informed as we get closer.
If you're interested in following the development of Chromium for Linux and Mac OS X, the Chromium development site is probably the resource to watch.
The launch of Chrome has not gone without its share of missteps. Chrome is apparently vulnerable to a carpet-bombing flaw that has been publicized and fixed in later versions of WebKit than Google has integrated. Although Chrome is a beta product, the comic introduction touts the security inherent in its design.
Similarly, some people feel that Chrome oversteps its bounds in terms of privacy. The omnibox (location bar, to those of you not yet speaking Chrome's lingo) offers suggestions as you type, and in order to do so, regularly sends data to the selected search engine, which defaults to Google. This leads some to argue that Chrome and privacy is a situation already worse than you think, although Google has already responded to concerns about the amount of this data that is retained.
Matt Cutts has spoken with the Google Chrome team to learn when Chrome "phones home", and summarized:
I knew that as soon as Google Chrome launched, some readers would ask tough questions about privacy and how/when Google Chrome communicates with google.com. So I decided to tackle this issue head-on. I talked to the Chrome team to find out if there’s anything to worry about. The short answer is no.
Despite these assurances, Germany's federal office of information security is reported to have warned users to avoid Chrome.
The Terms of Service have also come under fire for implying that Google retains a license to all content viewed in Chrome. Matt Cutts and Rebecca Ward, senior product counsel for Google Chrome agreed the terms were a mistake; the terms were revised on Wednesday, September 3rd, and the controversy has largely quietened.
Browser Wars and Other Motives
Many people have heralded the launch as the renewal of the browser wars once fought between Microsoft and Netscape / Mozilla (those were the primary contenders, although every browser has its contigent willing to trumpet its strengths). Some are willing to count Chrome out already, while others are adopting a wait and see stance.
Many argue that Google doesn't wish to compete with other browsers, simply to advance the state of network-delivered applications to where they are indistinguishable from desktop applications and in so doing, push the operating system into the background.
In particular, people telling this story love to cast Microsoft in the opposing role, so that one can imagine the two titans clashing.
Other Browsers: Comparisons and Impact
Some believe that Chrome is merely re-iterating what other browsers have already done. Georgios Kasselakis argued on OSNews that Chrome's process models aren't that different from IE8 and its tabs are pretty similar to those offered by Opera, a sentiment echoed by an Opera user.
Although V8 claims high speed backed by benchmarks, other browser manufacturers have been making similar claims to improved speed on their development lines.
Mozilla's Firefox 3.1 has TraceMonkey, which offers speed improvements, and Brendan Eich has done some testing of his own.
He believes TraceMonkey is already faster than V8 in some categories, and "in the game" in other categories, although he notes:
V8 is great work, very well-engineered, with room to speed up too. (And Chrome looks good to great -- the multi-process architecture is righteous, but you expected no less praise from an old Unix hacker like me.)
What spectators have to realize is that this contest is not a playoff where each contending VM is eliminated at any given hype-event point. We believe that Franz&Gal-style tracing has more "headroom" than less aggressively speculative approaches, due to its ability to specialize code, making variables constant and eliminating dead code and conditions at runtime, based on the latent types inherent in almost all JavaScript programs. If we are right, we'll find out over the next weeks and months, and so will you all.
The WebKit team has already been working on a new JavaScript interpreter, dubbed Squirrelfish, as previously described on InfoQ. John Resig has a detailed performance analysis in which SquirrelFish seems to come out on top, at least in places.
What everyone agrees on is that a focus on JavaScript performance is a good thing for the end users, who'll end up with much faster JavaScript engines no matter who's building them.
Many wonder what the introduction of another web browser will do to the existing web browsers on the market. Some feel that Microsoft is already losing ground as Internet Explorer continues to lose market share. Others fear that Firefox is more likely to suffer as Internet Explorer and Safari come preinstalled on Windows and Mac OS X, and many users simply use these without making an explicit choice, while Firefox and Chrome will fight for the same, smaller segment of the market that makes an explicit choice to download a browser. Early stats seem to support this. Google counters by arguing that the increased attention will remind people that they have a choice in terms of what browser they use, perhaps a choice they will exercise. Even Marc Andressen seems to feel that Chrome will bring a rising tide of competition to lift all ships.
Additional Analysis
Although this addresses the most common perspectives and analyses on Google Chrome, there are any number of smaller conversations going on about Chrome and its impact:
* Carsten Knobloch has already released a portable version of Google Chrome, although non-German-speaking readers may want to read an english summary.
* Some KDE developers feel as if their contributions to the origin of WebKit go uncredited too often.
* The Chrome Help group operated by Google already contains more than 1500 feature requests and suggestions (e.g. FTP support, themes, launching chrome in icognito mode, etc.)
* A number of people seem to feel that Chrome is the next step in Google's drive to cloud computing Information Week does a good job of assembling the zeigeist here.
* Jesper notes in his first impressions that the WebKit inspector seems very out of place in Chrome.
* Yakov Fain notes that Google Chrome requires Java 6 U 10, which he believes will please JavaFX developers, who are already riding the Chrome hype with a JavaFX/Chrome demo.
* New chrome users may be interested to get some tips, such as the special about pages.
* Google's Android may pick up parts of the Chrome stack, although details remain sketchy.
* Toolkit fans may want to know how Google will be doing cross-platform development:
We're too early in the port to have incorporated a toolkit. Most of the custom drawing goes through a library called Skia, which is comparable to Cairo in that it draws lines and rectangles but not buttons and checkboxes.
Many people have strong opinions about the toolkit, and part of the reason it's so divisive is because both libraries are quite capable of meeting Chromium's needs. In fact, because most of Chromium is just custom rendering for showing a web page -- for example, even the popup of an HTML select control is custom-drawn by WebKit -- we anticipate the only real places the toolkit will be visible are in the way some form controls look and in various dialogs like the preferences and "save as" dialogs.
With all of that said, the plan is to use GTK. It's not due to any dislike of Qt, but just because there's more experience on the team with GTK and it matches the existing Firefox dependency on Linux. Please keep calm. :)
The official announcement was preceded by a fair amount of buzz on the internet as the comic introduction that Google made to introduce Chrome made its first appearance before the announcement and before the release of the Windows beta of Chrome on September 2nd, 12pm PDT.
InfoQ has taken some time to compile some of the perspectives and analysis from the community, news media and blogosphere in order to assemble comprehensive coverage of the Google Chrome launch and its impact.
Introducing Chrome
Google introduced the browser through a comic designed for journalists and bloggers, drawn by Scott McCloud, the well-known author of Making Comics. The script was a collaboration between McCloud and the developers themselves, who McCloud interviewed and paraphrased. The comic introduces some of the areas where Google tried to differentiate Chrome from its competition: a focus on serving applications rather than content, a process-oriented approach to achieve a separation between isolated, sandboxed processes, a simplified tab-centric user interface, fast rendering and javascript engines and a built-in incognito browsing mode.
Chrome features a very simple user interface with tabs, an address/navigation bar and an optional toolbar. Although simplified interfaces are a common feature in modern web browsers, Google has taken this a step farther than most of its competitors. As Ars Technica puts it:
Google's approach with Chrome is different. Rather than removing features from existing web browsers, Google has taken its brightly colored forearm and swept the table absolutely clean. Forget about menu separators; why even have a bookmarks menu? Hell, why have a menu bar at all? Start with nothing. Assume nothing. Add features only as needed, and only in service of a well-defined design concept.
It's not that any particular feature of Chrome is so wonderful, or even that the sum of those features puts Safari back on its heels in the browser wars. It's the idea that someone other than Apple has taken such clear leadership in this area. Google Chrome makes Safari's user interface look conservative; it makes Apple look timid. And when it comes to innovation, overall daring counts for a lot more than individual successes or failures on the long-term graph.
This simplified interface is meant to distract less from the primary content: the web site or web application with which the user is interacting. For web applications in particular, Chrome can be stripped down even further with an interface that lacks even the navigation toolbar and dedicated links so that the resulting window looks that much more like an application instead of a web browser. Chrome also ships with Google Gears, whose primary purpose is to extend the capabilities of web applications and make them more like desktop applications, such as allowing them to function even when the user is disconnected from the internet.
Google has given the tabbed interface primary emphasis by placing the tabs at the top of the browser and allowing the tabs to be dragged not only within the frame but outside of it to create new windows or to move a tab from one window to another. These tabs are isolated from each other and sandboxed so that they are treated more like individual applications, where one misbehaving tab won't spoil the experience for the entire web browser. Although the comic introduction talks about process separation in some detail, the Chromium site goes into more detail of the four process models supported by Chromium and their strengths and weaknesses:
For its beta release, Chromium supports four different process models to allow experimentation and measurements, which will help us select a default model that best fits most users.
By default, Chromium uses a separate OS process for each instance of a web site the user visits. However, users can specify command-line switches when starting Chromium to select one of the other architectures: Chromium can instead use one process per web site, or it can isolate each group of connected tabs, or it can place everything in a single process. These models differ in whether they reflect the origin of the content, the browser's user interface, or both.
Topics of processes and threads draw regular controversy and this announcement is no exception.
Chrome also contains a private browsing mode called Incognito which allows the user to browse in a read-only session that doesn't save browser history and whose cookies are erased when the window is closed.
Technology and Internals
The Chrome browser is the result of the Chromium project, which connects the WebKit web browser engine with the new Google V8 JavaScript Engine, the Skia vector graphics engine, and Google Gears.
The WebKit browser engine began its life as a fork of the KDE project's KHTML and KJS engines by Apple, becoming the basis of the Safari browser. WebKit was later re-adopted by KDE. Google already employs WebKit within their Android mobile phone platform, and it became the obvious solution for them. As the comic introduction to Chrome states:
It uses memory efficiently, was easily adapted to embedded devices, and it was easy for new browser developers to learn to make the code base work. Browsers are complex. One of the things done well with WebKit is that it's kept SIMPLE.
The version of WebKit used in the initial Windows beta seems to be WebKit 525.13, which is not the most recent version, and has some security vulnerabilities (see Security below). Some users have also noticed rendering differences from Safari's WebKit rendering to Chrome's, including antialiasing and shadows. This may be the result of the Skia graphics engine used under the hood.
Talking about the integration with WebKit, the Chromium FAQ says:
The Chromium source code includes a copy of the WebKit source. We frequently snapshot against the WebKit tip of tree or specific branches according to our release needs.
Our goal is to reduce the size and complexity of the differences between the copy we maintain in order to work more effectively as a participant in the WebKit community and also to make periodic updates occur more smoothly.
The V8 JavaScript Engine is open-source and hosted on Google Code, but was written for Chrome, rather than adopting an existing JavaScript engine. V8 is written in ~100,000 lines of C++ and can be run standalone or embedded in C++ applications.
The foremost reason for V8's creation seems to be performance. The V8 Design Documentation states, "V8 is ... designed for fast execution of large JavaScript applications." The Chromium Blog on V8 is entitled "The Need for Speed" and states:
Google Chrome features a new JavaScript engine, V8, that has been designed for performance from the ground up. In particular, we wanted to remove some common bottlenecks that limit the amount and complexity of JavaScript code that can be used in Web applications.
V8 claims a number of performance improvements and innovations, from fast property access using hidden classes, dynamic machine code generation and efficient garbage collection (stop-the-world, generational, accurate, compacting), small object hreaders, multi-threaded from the ground up. The team that created V8 was headed by Lars Bak, who, as Avi Bryant says, was "the technical lead for both Strongtalk and the HotSpot Java VM, and a huge contributor to the original Self VM" and has a number of VM-related patents to his name.
V8 is not a virtual machine in the classic sense as Matthieu Riou points out: there's no intermediate representation or byte-code. As a result, you cannot write your own language that compiles to "V8 byte code", although you can cross-compile to JavaScript. Despite this, Dave Griswold believes that V8 could serve as the engine for other dynamic languages:
I think these properties will rapidly make V8 the dominant VM for dynamic languages. It ought to make a great platform for Smalltalk.
Google Gears has also moved into the Chromimum Project, as pointed out in the FAQ:
With Gears as a plug-in to Chromium we're carrying two copies of sqlite and two copies of V8. That's silly. We're integrating the code so Gears can run great in Chromium. We plan to continue to build Gears for other browsers out of the same code base.
Although Google Chrome supports plugins for content handling like Flash and PDF, it does not currently support browser extensions, although that is planned.
History
Niall Kennedy documented the history behind Google Chrome. He starts by describing Google's push for browser enhancements starting with its heavy use of Ajax and working with Ian Hickson on HTML5 and browser 'acid' compliance, through to browser extensions like Google Gears, Browser Sync and Safe Browsing. From there, he talks about Google's Android project with its WebKit browser acquired with Reqwireless, the Skia vector graphics library and the GreenBorder security sandbox. Finally, he describes the Chrome team headed by Ben Goodger and the V8 team headed by Lars Bak.
Wired's Steven Levy also covers some of the back-story behind the development of Chrome with his Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web, tracing its genesis back to 2001:
"The browser matters," CEO Eric Schmidt says. He should know, because he was CTO of Sun Microsystems during the great browser wars of the 1990s. Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin know it, too. "When I joined Google in 2001, Larry and Sergey immediately said, 'We should build our own browser,'" Schmidt says. "And I said no."
Levy covers the initial prototype, the V8 team, and despite some early leaks, the surprise launch:
It's incredible that something as potentially game-changing as a Google browser has stayed under wraps for two years. It wasn't until mid-2007, about a year into the project, that the team let employees outside the group even see what they were doing. At the first of a series of Tech Talks featuring the current prototype (events designed, in part, as a way of recruiting internally for the ever-growing team) the reaction was volcanic. Googlers broke into spontaneous applause when various features, like dragging a tab into a new window, were demo'd. As the number of people who knew about Chrome increased, the inevitable occurred — word did leak out to a blog or two, yet nothing came of those stray items. No reporter put it all together. "I think it was because rumors about Google browsers have been around so long — it's like sightings of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster," Upson says
The Launch: Windows-Only, Carpet-bombing, Privacy, EULA
Google's launch truly began when the comic surfaced, after which there was a blog post and a day's delay before the software beta became available. In the meantime, the comic itself gathered a lot of attention. Josh Evnin applauded the use of "actual Googlers" named in the comic and the way technical topics were both present and well-explained:
And another thing Google did well here was in not trying to over-engineer their explanations of highly technical processes. They simplified their message down to bare essentials, and I felt enlightened after reading this document. Most technical documentation talks down to people, assuming that all the basics are already understood. Google removed some barriers to entry by explaining their new technologies in a way that almost anyone with a little technical know-how can understand. This is something almost every other open source project out there fails at. Technical documentation is far more than simply documentation…it’s an implicit invitation to take part in the experience.
At the end of the day, I’m really impressed at the quality of this documentation. I actually read the entire thing, which is much more than I can say about the technical documentation for any other software I use. Who knew that I could find the difference between multiple threads and multiple processes interesting?
Google Chrome is currenly only available in Beta form on Windows, although other platforms are due soon. Both Mac and Linux versions have been referenced, but there are no explicit dates for their launch. The Mac version of Chromium is eagerly anticipated, and made an appearance in the press when Sergey Brin said the lack of a Mac version was "embarassing". The Mac version of Chrome has been benefiting from the efforts of Mike Pinkerton, the Project Lead and Lead Developer of Camino as well as a Google employee working on Google Desktop for Mac.
Amanda Walker notes on the Google Mac that although the Chrome team includes people with a lot of expertise in particular operating systems, they're still one team, and each member of the team contributes on all platforms. On the current state and progress, Walker wrote:
Right now, both are in the "pieces build and pass tests, but there's no Chromium application yet." While we're working hard and fast on catching up to the Windows version, we're not setting an artificial date for when they'll be ready--we simply can't predict enough to make a solid estimate, and we expect to learn a lot from the Windows public beta as well. On the plus side, since the project is now public, you'll be able to watch (and maybe even contribute to) the progress from week to week. As these versions stabilize, we will create official betas, much as we are now for the Windows version. While we can't give any dates yet, we'll keep everyone informed as we get closer.
If you're interested in following the development of Chromium for Linux and Mac OS X, the Chromium development site is probably the resource to watch.
The launch of Chrome has not gone without its share of missteps. Chrome is apparently vulnerable to a carpet-bombing flaw that has been publicized and fixed in later versions of WebKit than Google has integrated. Although Chrome is a beta product, the comic introduction touts the security inherent in its design.
Similarly, some people feel that Chrome oversteps its bounds in terms of privacy. The omnibox (location bar, to those of you not yet speaking Chrome's lingo) offers suggestions as you type, and in order to do so, regularly sends data to the selected search engine, which defaults to Google. This leads some to argue that Chrome and privacy is a situation already worse than you think, although Google has already responded to concerns about the amount of this data that is retained.
Matt Cutts has spoken with the Google Chrome team to learn when Chrome "phones home", and summarized:
I knew that as soon as Google Chrome launched, some readers would ask tough questions about privacy and how/when Google Chrome communicates with google.com. So I decided to tackle this issue head-on. I talked to the Chrome team to find out if there’s anything to worry about. The short answer is no.
Despite these assurances, Germany's federal office of information security is reported to have warned users to avoid Chrome.
The Terms of Service have also come under fire for implying that Google retains a license to all content viewed in Chrome. Matt Cutts and Rebecca Ward, senior product counsel for Google Chrome agreed the terms were a mistake; the terms were revised on Wednesday, September 3rd, and the controversy has largely quietened.
Browser Wars and Other Motives
Many people have heralded the launch as the renewal of the browser wars once fought between Microsoft and Netscape / Mozilla (those were the primary contenders, although every browser has its contigent willing to trumpet its strengths). Some are willing to count Chrome out already, while others are adopting a wait and see stance.
Many argue that Google doesn't wish to compete with other browsers, simply to advance the state of network-delivered applications to where they are indistinguishable from desktop applications and in so doing, push the operating system into the background.
In particular, people telling this story love to cast Microsoft in the opposing role, so that one can imagine the two titans clashing.
Other Browsers: Comparisons and Impact
Some believe that Chrome is merely re-iterating what other browsers have already done. Georgios Kasselakis argued on OSNews that Chrome's process models aren't that different from IE8 and its tabs are pretty similar to those offered by Opera, a sentiment echoed by an Opera user.
Although V8 claims high speed backed by benchmarks, other browser manufacturers have been making similar claims to improved speed on their development lines.
Mozilla's Firefox 3.1 has TraceMonkey, which offers speed improvements, and Brendan Eich has done some testing of his own.
He believes TraceMonkey is already faster than V8 in some categories, and "in the game" in other categories, although he notes:
V8 is great work, very well-engineered, with room to speed up too. (And Chrome looks good to great -- the multi-process architecture is righteous, but you expected no less praise from an old Unix hacker like me.)
What spectators have to realize is that this contest is not a playoff where each contending VM is eliminated at any given hype-event point. We believe that Franz&Gal-style tracing has more "headroom" than less aggressively speculative approaches, due to its ability to specialize code, making variables constant and eliminating dead code and conditions at runtime, based on the latent types inherent in almost all JavaScript programs. If we are right, we'll find out over the next weeks and months, and so will you all.
The WebKit team has already been working on a new JavaScript interpreter, dubbed Squirrelfish, as previously described on InfoQ. John Resig has a detailed performance analysis in which SquirrelFish seems to come out on top, at least in places.
What everyone agrees on is that a focus on JavaScript performance is a good thing for the end users, who'll end up with much faster JavaScript engines no matter who's building them.
Many wonder what the introduction of another web browser will do to the existing web browsers on the market. Some feel that Microsoft is already losing ground as Internet Explorer continues to lose market share. Others fear that Firefox is more likely to suffer as Internet Explorer and Safari come preinstalled on Windows and Mac OS X, and many users simply use these without making an explicit choice, while Firefox and Chrome will fight for the same, smaller segment of the market that makes an explicit choice to download a browser. Early stats seem to support this. Google counters by arguing that the increased attention will remind people that they have a choice in terms of what browser they use, perhaps a choice they will exercise. Even Marc Andressen seems to feel that Chrome will bring a rising tide of competition to lift all ships.
Additional Analysis
Although this addresses the most common perspectives and analyses on Google Chrome, there are any number of smaller conversations going on about Chrome and its impact:
* Carsten Knobloch has already released a portable version of Google Chrome, although non-German-speaking readers may want to read an english summary.
* Some KDE developers feel as if their contributions to the origin of WebKit go uncredited too often.
* The Chrome Help group operated by Google already contains more than 1500 feature requests and suggestions (e.g. FTP support, themes, launching chrome in icognito mode, etc.)
* A number of people seem to feel that Chrome is the next step in Google's drive to cloud computing Information Week does a good job of assembling the zeigeist here.
* Jesper notes in his first impressions that the WebKit inspector seems very out of place in Chrome.
* Yakov Fain notes that Google Chrome requires Java 6 U 10, which he believes will please JavaFX developers, who are already riding the Chrome hype with a JavaFX/Chrome demo.
* New chrome users may be interested to get some tips, such as the special about pages.
* Google's Android may pick up parts of the Chrome stack, although details remain sketchy.
* Toolkit fans may want to know how Google will be doing cross-platform development:
We're too early in the port to have incorporated a toolkit. Most of the custom drawing goes through a library called Skia, which is comparable to Cairo in that it draws lines and rectangles but not buttons and checkboxes.
Many people have strong opinions about the toolkit, and part of the reason it's so divisive is because both libraries are quite capable of meeting Chromium's needs. In fact, because most of Chromium is just custom rendering for showing a web page -- for example, even the popup of an HTML select control is custom-drawn by WebKit -- we anticipate the only real places the toolkit will be visible are in the way some form controls look and in various dialogs like the preferences and "save as" dialogs.
With all of that said, the plan is to use GTK. It's not due to any dislike of Qt, but just because there's more experience on the team with GTK and it matches the existing Firefox dependency on Linux. Please keep calm. :)
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Eppadi soukhyama, writes Google
CHENNAI, INDIA: Google India today reiterated its focus on serving Tamil speakers by announcing the launch of a new edition of Google News in Tamil and Tamil transliteration on Google Search, Blogger and Orkut.
Google believes that these launches will make it quicker and easier for the large population conversant in Tamil to be able to search for news and other information and to communicate with their friends and families, said a press release.
Google News in Tamil, like other news editions, gathers news stories from the various Tamil news sources on the web and presents an automatically generated summary with links to the most important stories in each section.
Every link to a news story takes the reader to the news site where they can read the story in its entirety.
This is the third Google News edition to be launched in India, after English and Hindi.
"We recognize that it can sometimes be hard to enter Tamil text with existing keyboards. Google's transliteration technology enables the conversion from English text to phonetically equivalent text in Indian languages," said Google sources.
"For example, using transliteration, you could type 'vanakkam' and we would convert it to Tamil script. We have embedded this technology in several Google products to make it easier to enter text in Tamil."
Google search in Tamil allows users to start typing in English and automatically get query suggestions in Tamil.
For example, if a user wanted to enter the query "ponniyin selvan" in Tamil, they simply need to start typing it in English - e.g. "ponni" and the tamil suggestion will be shown to the user.
Tamil transliteration in Blogger enables users to publish content in Tamil while using English keyboard for text entry. This is intended to make Tamil content more popular and more easily available in the online world, the release said.
Tamil transliteration in Orkut will make it easier to communicate with friends and family by exchanging scraps in Tamil. Google said these products will help bring the benefits of the internet to the millions of Tamil speakers in India and overseas.
New Google box that can search 10 million files
SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Google Inc said on Tuesday it is offering an upgraded version of the hardware appliance it sells to companies and government organizations for Google-style Web search of office documents.
The Web search leader said the latest version of the Google Search Appliance, a pizza-sized box that holds a self-contained search system for managing an organization's electronic files, can store up to 10 million documents in a single box.
The new product has the same capacity as a previous version that came in a five-box rack. Google already sells a 12-box version of the appliance in a rack the size of a stand-up refrigerator that can search up to 30 million documents.
The appliances contain Google software to power the search services, running on storage hardware from Dell Inc.
Once installed in a network, the appliances help staff find documents in various different corporate store houses, from EMC Corp's Documentum, IBM's FileNet, Open Text's LiveLink and Microsoft Corp's SharePoint.
New features in the latest model include greater encryption powers and the ability for Google Alerts to notify users when new documents are stored on the network by colleagues.
Network administrators will be able to manage Google Search Appliances in 27 languages, adding Turkish, Czech, Vietnamese and Portuguese. The boxes can, in turn, deliver search results to office workers in 40 different languages.
Mountain View, California-based Google does not disclose revenue for search appliances, which are part of its enterprise software and services business aimed at corporate buyers.
Roughly 98 per cent of its revenue comes from advertising sold alongside services on Google.com and affiliated sites.
But because Google does not reveal revenue for the business, it is hard to verify its claims to be the market share leader in enterprise, as well as consumer, search.
"We estimate, with obviously imperfect information, that we are the market leader," Matt Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprise, said in a phone interview.
Rival providers of search used inside company networks include Microsoft, IBM, and Autonomy of Britain.
Bharti to bring iPhone 3G to India
NEW DELHI, INDIA: Bharti Airtel today announced that it would launch the I-phone 3G in India on August 22.
According to the company, the I-phone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone plus 3G networking that is twice as fast.
It provides built-in GPS for expanded location-based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs hundreds of third party applications available through the new App Store, said a press release.
"iPhone has been the iconic technology revelation of this year," said Sanjay Kapoor, president of mobile services at Bharti Airtel.
"Airtel has been at the forefront of innovation and customer delight in the Indian telecom sector. Introducing iPhone 3G to India further underscores our commitment to enrich the communication experience of all Airtel users."
Customers will be able to purchase iPhone 3G at Airtel Relationship Centers, the a press release said.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Double Text - Starting The Program From Within Visual Studio
By George Gilbert
Double Text is a repeat text writer that works with virtually any scripting and programming language. I use the program extensively to store, document and repeat code snippets for all of the programming languages in which I work. I find that it is to my advantage, therefore, to have this repeat text writer readily available to me regardless of where I am working in the Microsoft Visual Studio software development environment. With the program on the Visual Studio Tools menu, I do not have to bother with the Windows Start menu, or with getting back to my desktop to start the program.
Adding The Program To The Tools Menu
Here are the steps for adding Double Text, or any other programming tool you use, to the Visual Studio Tools menu. In Visual Studio, click on the Tools menu and then the External Tools command. This will open the External Tools dialog box. Follow these steps in the dialog box.
1. Click the Add button. This will add a new Title to the Tools menu at the end of the existing titles.
2. In the Title textbox, change the new Title to "Double Text."
3. Click on the browse button to the right of the Command textbox. Browse to the folder where the program is installed. (If the installation path was not changed during installation, the program will be on the C: drive. Drill down through the Program Files and 2 Good Software folders to the Double Text folder.) In the installation folder, select the dbltext.exe file and then click the Open button.
4. To change the position of the program within the other tools listed on the Tools menu, use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to change the order of the menu contents.
5. Click the OK button.
Starting And Exiting The Program
Double Text will now be listed on the Visual Studio Tools menu. Whenever you are working in Visual Studio, you can start the program by clicking on the Tools menu and then the Double Text command. Unfortunately, when you exit Visual Studio, the repeat text writer will not also be closed. The program must be closed separately.
Using The Program
Repeating code snippets is the process of using Double Text to place a copy of code stored in source libraries on the Windows clipboard. Code that is to be repeated is set up once in a source file using the built in text editor. After a source file has been created, whenever a new copy of the code is needed it is placed on the clipboard with one mouse click. After a new copy has been placed on the clipboard, the repeated code can be pasted where needed in Visual Studio.
Double Text is a repeat text writer that works with virtually any scripting and programming language. I use the program extensively to store, document and repeat code snippets for all of the programming languages in which I work. I find that it is to my advantage, therefore, to have this repeat text writer readily available to me regardless of where I am working in the Microsoft Visual Studio software development environment. With the program on the Visual Studio Tools menu, I do not have to bother with the Windows Start menu, or with getting back to my desktop to start the program.
Adding The Program To The Tools Menu
Here are the steps for adding Double Text, or any other programming tool you use, to the Visual Studio Tools menu. In Visual Studio, click on the Tools menu and then the External Tools command. This will open the External Tools dialog box. Follow these steps in the dialog box.
1. Click the Add button. This will add a new Title to the Tools menu at the end of the existing titles.
2. In the Title textbox, change the new Title to "Double Text."
3. Click on the browse button to the right of the Command textbox. Browse to the folder where the program is installed. (If the installation path was not changed during installation, the program will be on the C: drive. Drill down through the Program Files and 2 Good Software folders to the Double Text folder.) In the installation folder, select the dbltext.exe file and then click the Open button.
4. To change the position of the program within the other tools listed on the Tools menu, use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to change the order of the menu contents.
5. Click the OK button.
Starting And Exiting The Program
Double Text will now be listed on the Visual Studio Tools menu. Whenever you are working in Visual Studio, you can start the program by clicking on the Tools menu and then the Double Text command. Unfortunately, when you exit Visual Studio, the repeat text writer will not also be closed. The program must be closed separately.
Using The Program
Repeating code snippets is the process of using Double Text to place a copy of code stored in source libraries on the Windows clipboard. Code that is to be repeated is set up once in a source file using the built in text editor. After a source file has been created, whenever a new copy of the code is needed it is placed on the clipboard with one mouse click. After a new copy has been placed on the clipboard, the repeated code can be pasted where needed in Visual Studio.
NetSuite Adds Capabilities to SaaS CRM Offering
Some CRM news I found, here are excerpts-
NetSuite announced new capabilities for its flagship CRM product, NetSuite CRM+, featuring AJAX-powered workflows. These new workflows center around user interaction and are now also supported in the new Firefox 3 web browser, along with other capabilities of NetSuite such as eXtreme list editing, rich-text editing, drag-and-drop and quick-add portlets.
ebizQ received the following:
"NetSuite has long been the gold standard for the use of AJAX in business applications, pioneering rich, dynamic user interface capabilities in a browser application typically found only in desktop applications," said Mini Peiris, NetSuite Vice President of Product Marketing. "Today's new release of NetSuite CRM+ demonstrates our ongoing commitment to innovation and to addressing specific customer requirements."
New Features Increase User Productivity
Launched in May 2005, NetSuite CRM+ is NetSuite's most feature-rich CRM offering, encompassing CRM requirements at every phase of the customer lifecycle. Unlike other CRM offerings in the market which focus largely on prospect management, NetSuite CRM+ goes much further by giving growing businesses a 360-degree view of all customer interactions, as well as the ability to actually record sales transactions. NetSuite CRM+ includes order management, partner management, incentive management, and project tracking.
Today's new release adds to the rich heritage of NetSuite CRM+ and the use of innovative, AJAX-powered user interfaces for key functional areas with:
Step-wise Assistants for Marketing Automation — a new two-step assisted workflow for group creation allows marketers to easily segment and slice their target audience for focused campaign execution. Similarly, the workflow for the creation of simple marketing and email templates, as well as uploading rich HTML-based marketing templates has been greatly streamlined with productivity of the marketer as the primary focus.
Read the entire article originally published on EbizQ
NetSuite announced new capabilities for its flagship CRM product, NetSuite CRM+, featuring AJAX-powered workflows. These new workflows center around user interaction and are now also supported in the new Firefox 3 web browser, along with other capabilities of NetSuite such as eXtreme list editing, rich-text editing, drag-and-drop and quick-add portlets.
ebizQ received the following:
"NetSuite has long been the gold standard for the use of AJAX in business applications, pioneering rich, dynamic user interface capabilities in a browser application typically found only in desktop applications," said Mini Peiris, NetSuite Vice President of Product Marketing. "Today's new release of NetSuite CRM+ demonstrates our ongoing commitment to innovation and to addressing specific customer requirements."
New Features Increase User Productivity
Launched in May 2005, NetSuite CRM+ is NetSuite's most feature-rich CRM offering, encompassing CRM requirements at every phase of the customer lifecycle. Unlike other CRM offerings in the market which focus largely on prospect management, NetSuite CRM+ goes much further by giving growing businesses a 360-degree view of all customer interactions, as well as the ability to actually record sales transactions. NetSuite CRM+ includes order management, partner management, incentive management, and project tracking.
Today's new release adds to the rich heritage of NetSuite CRM+ and the use of innovative, AJAX-powered user interfaces for key functional areas with:
Step-wise Assistants for Marketing Automation — a new two-step assisted workflow for group creation allows marketers to easily segment and slice their target audience for focused campaign execution. Similarly, the workflow for the creation of simple marketing and email templates, as well as uploading rich HTML-based marketing templates has been greatly streamlined with productivity of the marketer as the primary focus.
Read the entire article originally published on EbizQ
Do outbound links leak pagerank?
When I read about this issue…my first reaction was “what nonsense!”. I mean why would my PR suffer when I am giving some contextual links to my visitors, to read some references?
I found very contradictory opinions on this. Here are my learnings.
1. If you are providing only links, but no useful content of your own, then regardless of PR leak, you will certainly have visitor leak. This makes a lot of sense. If you don’t have anything to offer other than links, why should visitors visit that page? But again, if you have classified links, with some comments about every reference you are citing, that might be very useful to a reader, and your page might be worth bookmarking for him! an may be Google considers bookmarking as a factor.
2. If your site, as a whole has no outbound links, then crawler can’t proceed to some other interesting place from your site. This is not so good! This is called link sink. Flowing water to good to drink…once it’s still…it becomes undrinkable.
3. It is true that a link “donates” pagerank, rather than just “voting”…but still you are better of by giving out at least a few links to good quality sites. Google penalizes the sites that hoard pagerank like this.
4. If you give out some links, you can get back some links. Now, this is a very general rule. As with a normal social interaction, it might not result into reprocation. For example, frankly, I haven’t received any backlinks to this blog so far from the links that I put in my previous posts. Now, here is a contradiction…if you give out a link to an “authority” site, it might be good for you, but it’s unlikely that they’ll reciprocate and donate PR to you. So may be an ideal strategy would be to donate links to an “upcoming” site, than an “authority” one, who is more likely to have the manners and time to return the favor. Isn’t this eerily similar to real world social interaction? :)
5. Linking out helps in establishing context. My friend Saptarshi performed an experiment in which he proves that outbound links help Google to put the page in SERP for that particular context.
6. There are a lot of (over 100?) ranking factors in the ranking algorithm. Even though outbound links do reduce PR, they might have positive effect in some other parameters.
7. There might be different rule based on class of the site. Directories have huge number of outbound links, many of them not reciprocal.
8. You can use nofollow links to prevent leakage of PageRank.
The golden rule is always, as they say, content is king! If you have great content, and a decent site strcture, you will not need to worry too much about technicalities of PR.
I’ll keep posting more information as I find it… :)
I found very contradictory opinions on this. Here are my learnings.
1. If you are providing only links, but no useful content of your own, then regardless of PR leak, you will certainly have visitor leak. This makes a lot of sense. If you don’t have anything to offer other than links, why should visitors visit that page? But again, if you have classified links, with some comments about every reference you are citing, that might be very useful to a reader, and your page might be worth bookmarking for him! an may be Google considers bookmarking as a factor.
2. If your site, as a whole has no outbound links, then crawler can’t proceed to some other interesting place from your site. This is not so good! This is called link sink. Flowing water to good to drink…once it’s still…it becomes undrinkable.
3. It is true that a link “donates” pagerank, rather than just “voting”…but still you are better of by giving out at least a few links to good quality sites. Google penalizes the sites that hoard pagerank like this.
4. If you give out some links, you can get back some links. Now, this is a very general rule. As with a normal social interaction, it might not result into reprocation. For example, frankly, I haven’t received any backlinks to this blog so far from the links that I put in my previous posts. Now, here is a contradiction…if you give out a link to an “authority” site, it might be good for you, but it’s unlikely that they’ll reciprocate and donate PR to you. So may be an ideal strategy would be to donate links to an “upcoming” site, than an “authority” one, who is more likely to have the manners and time to return the favor. Isn’t this eerily similar to real world social interaction? :)
5. Linking out helps in establishing context. My friend Saptarshi performed an experiment in which he proves that outbound links help Google to put the page in SERP for that particular context.
6. There are a lot of (over 100?) ranking factors in the ranking algorithm. Even though outbound links do reduce PR, they might have positive effect in some other parameters.
7. There might be different rule based on class of the site. Directories have huge number of outbound links, many of them not reciprocal.
8. You can use nofollow links to prevent leakage of PageRank.
The golden rule is always, as they say, content is king! If you have great content, and a decent site strcture, you will not need to worry too much about technicalities of PR.
I’ll keep posting more information as I find it… :)
Open Web Foundation Officially Launches
This morning at that OSCON conference David Recordon of Six Apart will announce on stage the formation of the Open Web Foundation. The new foundation is about providing a home for the development and ratification of web-related standards efforts. The foundation will be focused on developing the technical specifications of protocols used for communication and inter-operability between applications on the web. The foundation will also set out the legal terms and best practices for the use and transport of both private and public data, and the usage of web services.
We first reported on the announcement on Tuesday of this week after Chris Saad, the co-founder of the Data Portability project wrote a post about the announcement. The Data Portability project is focused on the evangelism of data openness and transparency, while the new Open Web Foundation will be focused on implementation issues.
Yesterday at the F8 conference Facebook announced their support for the new foundation, and we have learnt that Google, MySpace, Six Apart, Plaxo and many others will also be supporting the new initiative. Google and Facebook now have an appropriate venue where they can resolve their differences and work on a standard way to have their users interact with each other between the Facebook Connect and OpenSocial platforms. The web foundation also provides the technical details, as well as policy details, on how such a relationship between companies and products could work.
Currently there is not much more at the Open Web Foundation outside of a lot of strong backing, a lot of strongly willed organizers and a lot of initiative. The foundation hopes that within the next few months after the announcement today they will be able to release their first set of work on data standards and formats.
China surpasses US in internet use
China has the maximum number of internet users-
China surpasses US in internet use.
Overtaking the US, Chinas internet-users population has reached 253 million by the end of June, reflecting the explosive growth in the web-user market in the country, data showed.
Latest government figures also showed that China also had the largest number of broadband subscribers at 214 million, more than 80 per cent of the total domestic internet population.
The number of Internet users at 253 million marked a 56.2 per cent rise from 162 million reported in 2007, the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), a semi-official organisation, said in a report.
The US has 218 million net users till December 31, 2007 when China had 210 million users. Based on the US growth pattern, CNNIC estimated that the numbers in the US could have now reached 230 million by the end of June this year.
The report, quoted by official Xinhua news agency and state-run China Daily, also showed that 206 million internet users checked news online, about 81.5 per cent of the whole domestic online population.
About 63.29 million shopped online, or a quarter of the whole domestic internet population, while 23.79 million paid money through online means, the CNNIC said.
"Though the number of internet users is now the highest in the world, China is far from an internet power in terms of the rate of penetration and the commercial value of its citizens," Liu bing, Chief Writer of the CNNIC semi-annual report said.
China surpasses US in internet use.
Overtaking the US, Chinas internet-users population has reached 253 million by the end of June, reflecting the explosive growth in the web-user market in the country, data showed.
Latest government figures also showed that China also had the largest number of broadband subscribers at 214 million, more than 80 per cent of the total domestic internet population.
The number of Internet users at 253 million marked a 56.2 per cent rise from 162 million reported in 2007, the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), a semi-official organisation, said in a report.
The US has 218 million net users till December 31, 2007 when China had 210 million users. Based on the US growth pattern, CNNIC estimated that the numbers in the US could have now reached 230 million by the end of June this year.
The report, quoted by official Xinhua news agency and state-run China Daily, also showed that 206 million internet users checked news online, about 81.5 per cent of the whole domestic online population.
About 63.29 million shopped online, or a quarter of the whole domestic internet population, while 23.79 million paid money through online means, the CNNIC said.
"Though the number of internet users is now the highest in the world, China is far from an internet power in terms of the rate of penetration and the commercial value of its citizens," Liu bing, Chief Writer of the CNNIC semi-annual report said.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Alibaba Earns A Voice In Micro-Hoo Deal
Alibaba founder Jack Ma didn't need to rub a magic lamp in order to chime in over talks of a potential Micro-hoo marriage. After all, Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) owns 39% of Ma's Chinese eBay, so if Yahoo! gets a new owner, so does its high-performing Sino-subsidiary.
Hangzhou-based Alibaba announced Monday it will have a say at the negotiating table and is reported to have recently hired consultants to help it strategically influence the terms of Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) 's potential sale. Alibaba might be used to majority rule in China, but it's making sure that strong connections fortify its minority voice in this possible buy-out.
Alibaba, the number one B2B site in China, has a right to speak up because a majority of its shares will change hands if the deal goes through. It can also get some air-time by leveraging its existing ties, including ones to would-be buyer Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ). Japanese telecommunications company, Softbank, owns 30% of Alibaba and has an existing "strategic partnership" with Microsoft dedicated to business communication services for small businesses. Further up the food chain, Softbank also owns 3.9% of Yahoo!
Not only does Softbank have a stake on paper, its president, Masayoshi Son, has some friends in high places making it that much easier to go over Yahoo!'s helmet. He and Bill Gates, both uber-rich tech billionaires, are reportedly quite friendly. Son and Yahoo! Chief Executive Jerry Yang, also are linked as buds. Yang has one of only four seats on Alibaba's board. Having buddies on both sides of a merger and money vested in two entities on the table puts Son in a sweet spot when it comes to a possible union between the two companies.
Yahoo! closed Friday at $29.66 down 32 cents, or $1.07%. Softbank closed Thursday in Hong Kong at $19.90.
Yahoo! made a good call when it bought into Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba. (See "Open Sesame:Alibaba Boosts Yahoo" ) The English language site connects importers and exporters in China and around the world. Business is booming with over 24 million registered users in 200 countries. (See "Chinese Freed to Shop an Overseas" )
Alibaba was worth an estimated $7.3 billion when it went public in November 2007 and today it's valued at $13 billion dollars. The company's IPO was met with great excitement; shares of Alibaba jumped 192% on the company's first day of trading to $5.06 from $1.73.
Hangzhou-based Alibaba announced Monday it will have a say at the negotiating table and is reported to have recently hired consultants to help it strategically influence the terms of Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) 's potential sale. Alibaba might be used to majority rule in China, but it's making sure that strong connections fortify its minority voice in this possible buy-out.
Alibaba, the number one B2B site in China, has a right to speak up because a majority of its shares will change hands if the deal goes through. It can also get some air-time by leveraging its existing ties, including ones to would-be buyer Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ). Japanese telecommunications company, Softbank, owns 30% of Alibaba and has an existing "strategic partnership" with Microsoft dedicated to business communication services for small businesses. Further up the food chain, Softbank also owns 3.9% of Yahoo!
Not only does Softbank have a stake on paper, its president, Masayoshi Son, has some friends in high places making it that much easier to go over Yahoo!'s helmet. He and Bill Gates, both uber-rich tech billionaires, are reportedly quite friendly. Son and Yahoo! Chief Executive Jerry Yang, also are linked as buds. Yang has one of only four seats on Alibaba's board. Having buddies on both sides of a merger and money vested in two entities on the table puts Son in a sweet spot when it comes to a possible union between the two companies.
Yahoo! closed Friday at $29.66 down 32 cents, or $1.07%. Softbank closed Thursday in Hong Kong at $19.90.
Yahoo! made a good call when it bought into Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba. (See "Open Sesame:Alibaba Boosts Yahoo" ) The English language site connects importers and exporters in China and around the world. Business is booming with over 24 million registered users in 200 countries. (See "Chinese Freed to Shop an Overseas" )
Alibaba was worth an estimated $7.3 billion when it went public in November 2007 and today it's valued at $13 billion dollars. The company's IPO was met with great excitement; shares of Alibaba jumped 192% on the company's first day of trading to $5.06 from $1.73.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Weave your threads for the web!
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| Suggest a web 2.0 application that will benefit from parallel programming and how, in not more than That's not all. Some of the best entries will be featured on the Intel® Software Network. You get to Two grand prizes worth $200 USD each to be won:
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| Looking forward to your active participation, Terms and conditions |  | ||||
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Monday, February 4, 2008
Java EE SDK & Java Application Platform SDK at a Glance
Java EE 5 SDK Update 4 and Java Application Platform Update 3 Beta are free integrated development kits that one can use to build, test, and deploy Java EE 5-based applications. Included in the SDKs is the Sun Java System Application Server 9.1 (Sun's supported distribution of GlassFish V2), which implements the latest Java EE 5 technologies and provides features aimed at improving developer productivity.
The Java Application Platform SDK features additional runtimes such as Open ESB, Portlet Container, and Sun Java System Access Manager. Download Java Application Platform SDK Update 3 Beta and Java EE 5 SDK Update 4.
The Java Application Platform SDK features additional runtimes such as Open ESB, Portlet Container, and Sun Java System Access Manager. Download Java Application Platform SDK Update 3 Beta and Java EE 5 SDK Update 4.
JavaFX Script - At a Glance
JavaFX Script is a highly productive scripting language that enables content developers to create rich media and content for deployment on Java environments. |  |  Creating an Application With JavaFX Script in the NetBeans IDE Plug-in |
Although JavaFX Script makes it very easy to create simple GUIs, it is designed to be capable of supporting GUIs of any size or complexity. JavaFX Script is statically typed, so it has the same code structuring, reuse, and encapsulation features (such as packages, classes, inheritance, and separate compilation and deployment units) that make it possible to create and maintain very large programs using Java technology.
In addition, JavaFX Script is intended to have the same level of IDE/tool support that Swing programmers are familiar within Java technology: an editor with code completion, refactoring, a Javadoc-like documentation tool, a source-level debugger, a profiler, and ultimately a visual builder.
JavaFX Script will work with all major IDEs, including NetBeans, which is the reference implementation IDE for Java development.
JavaFX Script is specifically designed to optimize the creative process of building rich and compelling UIs, leveraging Java Swing, Java 2D, and Java 3D for developers and content authors. These RIAs and next-generation services that can be proliferated across virtually any device — from phonetop or desktop browsers and mobile devices, to set-top boxes and Blu-ray Discs — securely and without local installation.
JavaFX Script applications will run on JavaFX Mobile software, making these types of applications a reality for the mobile world.
Java Everywhere
| Java Technology Facts | |
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