It's always fascinating to watch companies going through the process of becoming behemoths, a path that is usually accompanied by a transition from openness ("Here's our new initiative--will you be writing about that?") to a far more secretive outlook ("Sorry, we can't talk about that thing we were talking a lot about last year").

AT&T's CEO Ed Whitacre is once again crowing about his company's plans to extort money from Google and other Web sites who want to be able to reach AT&T customers. "The content providers should be paying for the use of the network," he told the Financial Times, and added that they shouldn't "expect a free ride."

Instant messaging is great stuff. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. However it does come at a cost. Security, as it relates to IM, stinks. Public networks can be uncontrolled, unregulated hostile grounds of exploits and manipulators. Private networks usually has a high price tag when you factor in hardware and maintenance costs. I've teamed up with Security Channel editor/podcaster Curt Franklin in this podcast to talk about some of the security issues related to instant messaging. Instant messaging isn't something you can ignore.

Last Thursday, the IEEE announced that the 802.11n Task Group (TGn) had approved a draft of what may be the most significant new standard to come out of IEEE in the past 10 years. Based largely on a specification developed by the Enhanced Wireless Consortium (EWC), an association of leading network silicon developers, the proposal, which required a 75 percent vote for passage, garnered 184 votes affirmative and 0 votes opposed, with 4 abstentions.

Thinks the federal government is too intrusive? You ain't seen nothing yet. An FCC mandate will require that all hardware and software have a wiretap backdoor that allows the government to tap into all your communications.

Google used to crow that it didn't manipulate its search results to help advertisers, or censor its results in any way. But after Google has agreed to censor search results for its Chinese site, it has quietly pulled its Help page that says it does not censor search results.

If you're trying to quit smoking and you love listening to MP3s, here's a great way to play your favorite music in your car and rid yourself of the temptaion to light up at the same time. The Yifang EM192F is a car charger, FM modulator, and USB MP3/WMA reader, all in one device.

Happy Friday!

Time to celebrate the end of the week with a free toy!

Centennial Software is heralding a new freebie from Sharp Ideas. Abe Usher's Slurp Audit is a free tool that provides information on what files might be at risk for theft on your network. It's designed to run right from a USB stick, and generates reports showing what files could have been downloaded using a USB connected device, effectively being stolen.

This application helps to highlight the threats associated with endpoints and portable storage devices, which is why Centennial (which creates IT asset management and endpoint security products) is "noting" the announcement.

You can get Slurp Audit here.

Get out there and scare your security guys! They love this stuff, really!

For the nearly two decades that I've covered this industry, Microsoft has been unbending on one thing -- its source code was the crown jewels, never to be touched or even seen by the commoners. It held that position rigorously, even as there came to be a ton more to keep under wraps as Windows grew into a code behemoth, not to mention all the ancillary apps that got thrown into the basic OS mix.

The news that Google has agreed to censor its Chinese site on behalf of that totalitarian government is one more example of why Google's famous "Don't Be Evil" motto has become meaningless. Exactly how bad is Google's censorship? Now there's a way to see for yourself.

I don't know about you, but I don't think I could work successfully without instant messaging. In an average day, I instant message with colleagues, contractors, vendors, and contacts throughout the industry. I'm not alone--survey after survey shows that employees are hooked on instant messaging as a way to keep in touch. From a security standpoint, of course, instant messaging comes with a pile of caveats. The open feeling that makes instant messaging so useful also makes it a huge security risk. The free and open dialogue it promotes can be antithetical to complying with regulatory separation between departments. Network Computing technology editor Mike DeMaria got together to talk about the possibilities and problems of using instant messaging in the enterprise. You can hear the podcast here.

The Bush Administration's subpoena of Google to turn over millions of user search queries has already had a dangerous effect: Users are scared to do searches, because the feds might misconstrue them. So reports the New York Times.

Podcast - Collaboration On The Go - Surviving Collaboration in 2006. Every year, Network Computing produces a special issue called the "Survivor's Guide". This is where we talk about what happened in the previous year, what will happen in the next year, and some predictions as to where technology, companies and the industry will go. In the first half of this podcast, I talk about our new core area "Messaging & Collaboration". I'll go over why we made this change, what will be covered, and some predictions on where the industry is going. The second half of the podcast covers "Hot & Not" technologies and companies to watch. In the printed article, I couldn't go very deep into why I felt some technologies and companies deserved to be called out or praised. Fortunately I have this podcast medium which can supplement my printed works. If you're wondering why I declared XMPP a "Not", or declared Real Networks a company to watch, you can hear about it here.

Just a reminder, you can subscribe to my podcast via our RSS feed, and automatically receive new episodes in your podcast aggregator. The feed's URL is here

The music featured in this episode is called "Music for a Future City", by Camtarn. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

I'm really finished testing ESBs, but during the course of writing the article I often need to go back and double check something. I usually don't write at the lab (can't chain smoke around the servers) so I need to take advantage of remote access.

Except I forgot to enable one machine for remote access and I really don't want to run to the lab just to get access. So I did what any good admin does - I hit google.

Sure enough, this great article describes step by step how to remotely modify the registry on a remote machine to enable remote access. A few minutes of playing "find the registry key" and voila!

All Hail Mitch Tulloch and Google. How did we ever do without them?

Yesterday I finally received the Press Release that broke me.

I've been laughing at the storage market for years over their opinion of the size of budget an SMB has, but this one just did me in.

"...the first IP product of its kind geared towards the “S” in the SMB. With the availability of the product XXXX has extended its reach to the entry-level and has broadened its product line from entry level to the enterprise. In addition it provides customers with enterprise- class functionality at a starting MSRP of less than $20,000."

If this is 2006, it must be time to hype blade servers.

Think paying up to $60 for broadband access is price gouging? You're not alone. But now there's a way to get free WiFi access at home or on the road --- or at least get it literally for the price of chocolate chip cookies. ShareMyWifi.com lets people share their broadband access for free or a small fee.

As you may know, we are in the process of moving the Green Bay RealWorld Lab. Our current facilities were not meeting our needs, so we are out prospecting new sites. The Green Bay Facility houses NWC Inc., which is open to all of our readers and simulates a business that sells the inimicable widget.

Anyway, NWC Inc. can't go down - we'd lose 'customers', and you'd be upset if you couldn't order caffienated widgets! So I need to know that whatever new facility we choose is going to support us from day one, no questions asked.

Enter Fluent, wanting me to look at Coolsim. This is a service they sell that will allow you to diagram your data center, show where the AC units, baffles, racks, and floor tile cutouts are and will simulate your airflow to determine the adequacy of your cooling.

I went through the demo with them online because this is one of the areas we're concerned about, and one that we know some of you have to worry about.

They did an excellent job. Now no modeling tool is 100% correct (except the paint job on my 8th army models...), but I'm certain if you put in quality data you will get a plausible simulation out of it. Knowing where the hot and cool areas of your data center are is just enough information to decide whether moving machines in racks will do the job, or you need more A/C.

They sell it as a service because the actual calculations are run on their servers (they say supercomputers, I haven't seen so we'll take their word for it). I think that it being a service is a negative, but honestly it does the job, so what's the big difference other than a monthly fee?

If you're constantly fiddling with cooling in your data center, it is worthwhile to take a look at their service. After all of the hassles we've been through with AC in the last 18-24 months, I know I'm going to before we move. Modeling our new data center with several different layouts could save me a ton of work down the road. And none of us wants more work with no gain to the organization.

Until next time.
Don.

I was just reading a ZapThink report on Microsoft's new XAML-extensions for WWF (Windows WorkFlow) and got stuck again on one of Ronald Schmelzer's comments.

Ron is quoted in several publications as saying:

"Microsoft’s use of XAML as a way to specify business processes is unique, Schmelzer said."

Now I don't know what you've been doing lately, Ron, but I just finished writing an entire book on XAML and let me tell you something, there's very little "unique" about XAML. Oh, don't get me wrong - it's cool, it's sexy, it's neato-nifty-keen and there's some new features available that will knock your socks off, but it isn't unique and neither is extending it to incorporate business process specific calls to WWF.

Ever heard of BPEL, Ron? You know, an XML-based specification that describes...

wait for it...

wait for it...

You got it - business processes. Specifically, the activities and steps that make up a business process. Sound familiar?

WWF XAML: <SequenceActivity />
BPEL : <sequence />

Oooohhh.. now that's unique, isn't it?

Yes, there's some differences, but the core terminology - notice the term "sequence", Ron? - and concept is the same. They are both XML-based formats for referencing activities and interacting with a business process. Both are interpreted by a runtime engine. (BPEL -> BPEL Engine. WWF XAML -> WPF + WWF)

The only reason you might (and that's a big might) consider Microsoft unique in this area is because it is embedding activities and steps right in the user interface. That's right, XAML was primarily built for declaring user interfaces, and is being extended to support other Windows specific technologies as we speak. It certainly isn't unique because activity artifacts can be changed on the fly and reinterpreted because BPEL is treated the same way.

Why is using XAML unique? XAML is extensible, all XML is. That's not unique. I point you at WS-Policy as an example, which is being extended to support domain specific policy declarations such as security (WS-SecurityPolicy).

Using XAML - or any other XML - to specify business processes is hardly unique. Unless you're going to fall on your sword and claim that it's unique because it's a) embedded inside a user-interface (which breaks Microsoft's own best practices statement of separating user interface from application logic) or b) because it's a lot neater and cleaner than BPEL, I call horsepuckey.

Well, which is it? I'd really like to know because this quote on the subject is really quite...vague...and quite frankly, I don't see how you can seriously say it's unique.

The fictitious character Borat, a satirical creation of the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, may not appear to have much in common with the search giant Google. But Borat's fate -- to have his Web site taken offline on the behest of the Kazakhstan government -- tells us something about what the future of the Internet may look like.

Centeris has shipped its Likewise Management Suite, which I wrote about back in the fall when the nascent company had announced an open beta period. At that point, Centeris knew it had most of its developmental ducks in order and wanted some final feedback before going gold.

Hard on the heels of Google saying it won't pay cyberextortion to BellSouth, Verizon, SBC and others, comes a survey that says consumers are worried that Internet providers may block access to Net services -- and the feds should take action.

Well, after spending three hectic weeks in the lab testing ESB products, you can imagine that I've had to find a few interesting tools.

Today's freebie is one of them. It's called XMOJO and it's an OSS JMX implementation, supporting both instrumentation and management. XMOJO, aside from having a cool sounding name, is a complete implementation of version 1.0 of the JMX specification. It offers multi-management via RMI and HTTP and has been tested on multiple enterprise service platforms: WebLogic, WebSphere, Oracle9iAS, JBoss, and TIBCO Hawk among them.

XMOJO includes an MBean RMI client for testing developed JMX agents.

You can get XMOJO here.

Go crazy!

No, I'm not talking about the hot-rods over-romanticized by Bruce Springsteen -- I'm talking about your computer. Whether it's a basic PC or the machine you're using to manage your servers, it may well be messing with your health a lot more than you think. And that's across the board: Physical, emotional, the entire holistic picture.

It has come to my attention - usually painfully - that many people erroneously believe that the plural of e-mail is e-mails.

It is not.

Does the post office deliver mail, or mails? Yeah, exactly. "Hey, look at the mails I got today!" Sounds pretty retarded, doesn't it? So does "Hey, look at the e-mails I got today!"

E-mail is like beer, and deer. You don't have "beers" (unless you're from the UP, eh? Ya!). You don't shoot "deers", and you don't send or receive e-mails.

And yes, as a matter of fact it is a hyphenated word. If you don't like the hyphen, petition Merriam-Webster.

Just like anal-retentive.

Your observations that this last example applies to the author of this blog are unnecessary. She already knows.

BellSouth and Verizon have been trying to force big Web sites to pay extortion-type fees if the sites want adequate bandwidth, with Google a prime target. But Google has news for them: It won't pay.

I don't have pictures yet, but I do have an update for you.

I took the VIA board and dug around until I found a desktop case that would hold it just right. I was going to use the mini-case I had from an old all-in-one webserver Lori and I had years ago but the case is too small, so I settled on a desktop.

I got it mounted and have a pinout of the VIA board to match up with the case and power supply wiring. Soon I will be able to boot to the flash, I hope. I do have an old CDROM to install from, and a couple of known-good hard disks to use to get it running.

After a little fact-checking I realized that most PCI-X is backward compatible to 32 bit PCI, so I may be okay with a PCI-X adapter. I'm waiting to hear back from Adaptec, but now that I've had reason to look it up, I'm hopeful.

This project got a little disrupted by the standard "emergency" issues that everyone has. My workload was a little much over the holidays, we lost a NAS device (see below entry), and we have been having problems with water in the lab - not that there IS water in the lab, but an alarm telling us there could be soon keeps going off. Lori has been handling this, but it does consume time trying to insure that if we go in one morning and everything is a little wet, we'll be okay. Most stuff is off the floor a good six inches, so the entire building will have trouble if any of our critical gear gets fried. Except our Cat 6500, which last I saw was sitting on the floor...

Anyway, things seem to be moving again, I'll get the NAS booted in the next few days and then check back with you about the trials and tribulations of installing an OS on non-standard hardware. Needless to say, I'm hoping that post is short because all went well ;-).

Until then,
Don.

BellSouth's new business model, a slightly more polite form of the kind of extortion practiced by Tony Soprano, is starting to pay off. The company says it is in negotiations with several Web sites willing to pay extra fees to BellSouth for more bandwidth than it provides to other sites.

Thought I forgot about you (again), didn't you?

I've got a couple of interesting freebies for you this Friday.

Textmessage.cc is launching its new site for sending text messages free. Everyone gets free access to send text messages from a website to most digital mobile phones that permit the sending of short messages directly from your Blog or website.

Also included in the launch is a free tool for adding code directly to your website to enable this functionality.

Go nuts!

The second freebie is more work oriented and is from IBM. During the course of testing MQ it became necessary to read and write messages from the queue. Enter RFHUTIL, available for free download and use here (IBM Supportpac IH03). This is a pretty cool tool and lets you view messages in just about any conceivable format (including COBOL copybook), so grab it and start reading and writing from those queues!

It's been a while since I updated, which generally means there's a lot going on. Yeah, we're busy, makes the days go by faster :-).

Anyway, we lost a NAS device a week or two ago. It was ugly. You see, I asked Lori "Is everything on the network being backed up?" Her answer was "Yes, it's all going to backup." She's like the sys admin, and I'm like the storage admin, so this was cool.

Except I was thinking about the backup machine when I asked that. You see, like most environments we found a device that was easy to get access to and had a lot of space on it - at least a lot of space where word docs and PDFs are concerned. So we used it.

Unfortunately, it was not in the backup system because that was our backup device. And it died. On my birthday no less.

Yeah yeah, laugh at me for using a backup device as primary storage, laugh at me for using a consumer grade NAS device in a mission-critical situation (all of Lori and I's test results and all of our writing, both freelance and for CMP were on there), but it's happening in your enterprise too, and it grew in your environment the same way it did for us. Slowly and nefariously.

In the end most of it was backed up somewhere. Her book for O'Reilly was in her sent mail, our book for another publisher was in my sent mail, etc. We only lost about a weeks worth of work each, and that on freelance stuff. But it was scary.

Infrant Technologies was nice enough to come to our rescue and let us keep one of their ReadyNAS devices we had laying around the lab. That's good news because ReadyNAS is RAIDed, so no fears about the single drive dying and taking things with it.

And while we were at it, I reconfigured the storage so that the machine named "backup" was only used for backups, and all direct storage on that network goes to the Infrant.

It's the little things - like a little consumer grade NAS with a single disk that can die, or miscommunications between admins - that can get you.

Beware, it's scary out there.

Next time we'll chat about the progress I'm making (and not making) on the "Build your own NAS" project. It's moving along, I may even post pictures.

Oh Yeah, and Happy New Year!

Until then,
Don.

Google's famous mantra, "do no evil" has come back to haunt it, with many blogs, including this one, frequently calling the company to task for "evil" deeds. Now it's your turn --- a new site lets you cast your vote on whether Google is evil.

So here's a weird one for you. I was testing another ESB today and just finished setting up the classpath to include the OpenJMS jars. After testing connectivity (yeah! it worked) I tried to hit the administrative console for the underlying application server and ... nothing.

The server responded, but no page displayed. Well this is weird...a bit of digging showed that the servlets and portlets responsible for displaying the page were hooked into Log4J. Many Java-based applications are, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Looking at the logs, it appeared that some sort of conflict had arisen in the Log4J system. Some sort of class conflict. Some sort of OpenJMS-is-using-old-libs conflict.

After removing the OpenJMS jars from the classpath - voila! The administrative console returned to normal.

I have seen some strange things while testing, but never something like this. I'd expect the administrative console to not load at all, but given the fact that the proper class exists and is apparently just missing a method (log, believe it or not), I guess it isn't that surprising. Just weird.

Someday I'll get through a product test without anything weird happening. Everything will go smoothly. Everything will work as advertised...

Why yes, I'd love to buy a piece of your bridge. How much?

Today I attended Microsoft's TechVista 2006 symposium in Bangalore. This is the second annual conference; the first coincided with the opening of Microsoft's Indian research office last year. Microsoft Research India started the day by unveiling a prototype of a digital map of India, a project they are working on in conjunction with the Survey of India part of India's Department of Science and Technology. Think of the digital map as a combination of Google street maps overlaid with satellite imagery with a Wikipedia aspect that enables users to annotate specific elements of the map, by adding details about their favorite restaurant for example.

Sir Tony Hoare accepts a hearty round of applause Click to Enlarge

The free VoIP client Skype sounds like a great deal -- but it could be carrying the VoIP calls of strangers, and could suck up so much bandwidth that it may bring down your network. So says a report in Computerworld.

The traffic is still unbelievable but I realized today as I examined the sheet metal around me that it was all intact—no dents, dings not so much as a bumper out of place. There are rules, just not ones that I'm use to but they do appear to work. I have no idea what they are—perhaps the constant honking is really a form of Morse Code.

So, Apple, that company we usually dare not name, has crossed over into the world of Intel processors with its speedy introduction at Macworld Tuesday of an iMac and a new laptop bearing Intel inside.

Here's one for conspiracy theorists: Google is negotiating to pay Verizon cash as a backdoor way to deny bandwidth to Google's smaller competitors. Sounds far-fetched? Then why has Verizon announced that it's negotiating with Google about the payments?

Podcast - Collaboration On The Go - All About Apple, Almost. Tuesday was a massive Apple news day, with the release of Intel based Macs, software updates and figures on iPod sales. Lots of people are buying them, to the tune of 42 million. In this podcast, I give my initial thoughts on the new MacBook Pro, and then switch the discussion over to IP television and pay per download video. Watching videos on iPods are fun, but how long will we tolerate video on a 2 inch screen? The podcast closes with a look at Google's new video store (I'm not impressed yet).

The music featured in this episode is called "Music for a Future City", by Camtarn. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

I started perf testing one of the ESB products today and immediately discovered that it wasn't responding as expected. Okay, no problem, I'll just remove the extra message logging I put it while building an orchestration and restart the test.

Wait...it's still not responding. What is this? 2095 active BPEL processes? Hmmm...okay, there's a delete button. I should just be able to push the button and the process will go away...sure, I have to do it 2095 times but hey, better than nothing.

What's this? A Java exception? On the console? What do you mean, "Contact your system administrator". I am the system administrator and I can assure you I have no idea what this generic exception is trying to say. Maybe the log has more information...ummm, yeah. A stack trace. Oooh, and another copy of the exception message thrown on the admin console. That's nice. But why, exactly, was this exception thrown?

Was it privileges? Is the manager not responding? Solar Flares?? Magnetized shoes??!?! What?

A general exception error that is printed out on the screen with no clue as to what really happened is less useful than just saying "Yo, that didn't work!". Ya gotta give me something more to go on here, people!

Please?

Wow. Well, this one came out of nowhere. Mercury picked up Systinet for a cool $105M in cash today.

Everyone who's reporting on this seems to be focusing on how good a move this is for Mercury; how purchasing the Registry/Repository provider is going to enable Mercury's product lines to continue embracing and extending SOA. What everyone keeps ignoring is what this acquisition might do to the other SOA-based ISV product lines...Come on. When a company tells me about its registry, the conversation is nearly inevitably ended with an admission that the ISV OEM's Systinet's Business Service Registry. BEA. Oracle. Et al...

Nearly every BPM and ESB product out there either OEM's the product or interoperates with it - and makes a point of mentioning that. Why? Because Systinet is, and has been, entrenched in the wider SOA market for about two years now. So why aren't these analysts talking about the impact this acquisition will have on the wider market?

Maybe because right now it looks like nothing. Mercury claims it will run Systinet as a "wholly owned subsidiary" so one hopes that nothing will change with its partners and customers.

But the registry/repository space is a small one, and this acquisition leaves only Infravio and SOA Software as the most well recognized providers of registry/repository solutions in the market. Yes, Software AG has a solution, but its just making its first appearance this year and doesn't have the traction with ISVs that Systinet has. I'm guessing that Infravio and SOA Software are both licking their chops in anticipation that this acquisition will not be viewed positively by Systinet's OEM partners. With all the financial problems Mercury Interactive has had in the past few months - including being delisted from the NASDAQ - you can bet that some of Systinet's old OEM partners - and customers - are likely willing to listen.

In a few short years, the Chinese networking firm Huawei has risen to become of the world's largest powerhouses. But there are claims that the company has shady ties to China's notorious intelligence and military complex. So says a new report in Newsweek.

I'm in India this week tagging along with a group of IT professionals from CMP Media and United Business Media (UBM) as they investigate opportunities for outsourcing.

I just flew back from CES and boy do my arms hurt. Ouch, so does that joke. But my brain really does hurt, at least a little bit. Days of wandering around show floors, careening from booth to booth for vendor meetings, and running to press rooms to file stories (I did have a WiFi connection once, for about 30 seconds), certainly takes its toll on a gal.

I've had a couple days now to reflect on our future in the relative peace and quiet of my home (if any home with a child under 18—make that 30--can be considered peaceful or quiet), and the thinking has me excited, yet a bit apprehensive. I know the revolution in digital entertainment and "the digital lifestyle" has been coming for the past few years now, but this time it seems like all the pieces really are in place for it to take off. What will the consequences be?

It's official --- VoIP phreakers and hackers are out in force, and they're coming straight at you. Bruce Stewart's Emerging Telephone blog reports that the 22nd Chaos Communication Congress includes a talk on VoIPhreaking - An Introduction to SIP Hacking. So take time to lock down your systems.

Google has been pooh-poohing authors and publishers, who are suing Google for violating their copyrights by scanning copyrighted books without the copyright holders' permissions. But at the same time Google ignores copyright law, it has developed its own digital-rights-management scheme for protecting copyrighted data downloaded from its new pay-for-video site.

An enterprise service bus (ESB) is essentially an integration technology. It's designed to integrate applications and technology using standards-based protocols. JDBC. JMS. SOAP. FTP.

But it is, at its core, an integration technology. That means adapters. Endpoints. Integration points. Whatever.

Part of testing an ESB must, therefore, be to evaluate the mechanisms provided for connecting to disparate systems, such as NWC Inc.'s Oracle 9i database. That requires a database adapter.

Most vendors I've tested are using DataDirect JDBC drivers as the means by which a database is integrated with the bus. Some, however, use a proprietary adapter. There's no technical issue with this whatsoever. But let's discuss the licensing issue because that is, as it has always been with integration technologies, a problem.

Usually, it's just a painful process of insuring that a single, all encompassing license file includes all the adapters you'll need. But this week I learned a new trick, one I'm going to call a connect license. Usually license files are added to the system through the administrative console and never thought of again. But this product required - yes REQUIRED - that a license key be entered whenever a database connection was configured. Every. Time.

Now you may be thinking "So what? I'm only going to set up maybe 3 or 4 database connections, that's not a big deal!"

Well, yes it is - if the product in question also tightly couples a single database query to a connection. I won't even go into the fact that tightly coupling anything in a product that is allegedly the "underpinnings" or "foundation" of an SOA which is, by necessity, a loosely coupled system, is counter-intuitive and makes no sense. One connection. One SQL statement. One license.

This. Is. Ridiculous. People.

It's one thing to license software, it's another to license particular features of software, it's a whole other ballgame to license connectivity. It's craziness, it's annoying, and it's just plain silly.

I guess at least I should be grateful that the license check is done during configuration. Imagine the impact on performance of a system conducting a license audit at runtime - to make certain the system is actually licensed to connect at runtime.

I think it's time to shut up, before someone decides that's a good idea. You never know with software.

Welcome back! Hope the holidays were as good to you as they were to me.

Today's Friday Freebie is a video service from DKWare called DKMessenger.

DKMessenger is a free PC-to-PC videophone and messaging service that permits communications via text, video and audio simultaneously. Yeah, kind of like Skype 2.0 (though I doubt they have the cool Wireless Linksys Skype phone that Santa brought Don for Christmas).

DKWare also offers a business edition of DKMessenger that's not free (as in gratis) but includes additional collaborative technologies such as whiteboarding, encryption, virtual meeting rooms, and more.

Have at it, folks!

The Xooglers blog, run by ex-Googlers who offer insiders' looks into the Googleplex, has gone quiet because Google's legal team has asked them to hold their tongues.

Worried about the WMF vulnerability. Secure Enterprise Magazine's Editor Mike Fratto has found two 'off the record' fixes that will do a good job of holding down the fort until Microsoft comes up with something more official. Mike explains:

While I am not in the habit of recommending unofficial patches, it seems like the WMF vulnerability is pretty nasty, so you probably want to spend some time testing and deploying the work-arounds. Simply blocking files ending in .wmf won't be enough because Windows handles WMF files based on file structure, not extension. Files ending in .jpg and .gif are just as likely to be WMF files as not.

Google is subject to more rumors than Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston -- and most of them are most certainly false. Here's a quick rundown on some of the more baseless and outrageous rumors, as well as some that might prove to be true.

Before I could even get to a prediction for the coming year (check back tomorrow), I'm diverted into speculation...but such speculation! First, though, I will predict that 2006 will be the Year Of Google, and of Microsoft's inevitable reaction to its continued market forays.

Google may think it rules the roost, but the Darth Vader of politics, VP Dick Cheney, has made clear that even Google has to bow down to him. According to the New York Times, Cheney has forced Google to obscure the view of the VP's residence in Google Earth, even though the White House and adjacent buildings remain visible.