Fri - August 25, 2006

Sat - July 29, 2006

The Extensis Forums

Visit the new user-to-user forums at http://forums.extensis.com. You will also see a lot of Extensis people answering and asking questions. Stop by.

Posted at 11:21 AM     |

Thu - May 11, 2006

First Steam Driven Balloon Ever: HeiDAS UH

Scientists from Technical University of Berlin launched the first free flying steam balloon ever. The prototype, which has the unusual name HeiDAS UH (HeissDampfAeroStat Ultraheiss), has a diameter of 2.35 meters and is being carried by seven cubic meter of steam.

The German version of Technology Review reports that HeiDAS uses innovative materials, most importantly Polyimid, which can withstand the heat of 500 degrees Celsius, a heat resistant glue, a new burning and security system.

HeiDAS offers several advantages over conventional balloons: Helium, which is used in those balloons, is a limited resource and relatively expensive. The scientists from the Technical University of Berlin decided to use hot steam at a temperature of 150 degrees Celsius. It offers almost helium like qualities and is much better than hot air.

The idea of steam balloon is not new. In 1816, Sir George Cayley recommended the usage of water steam for air ships. The biggest obstacle in the development of steam balloons was the material, which has to withstand the hot steam.

Posted at 09:27 PM     |

Best Practices in Font Management

The second edition of Extensis' Best Practices Guide in Font Management is available here.

Posted at 08:55 PM     |

Wed - May 3, 2006

Bertelsmann gets bigger and thinks without music

Reuters is reporting that Bertelsmann was able to double their profit in the first quarter of their new fiscal year compared to the first quarter last year. The Ebit grew from 129MM Euro to 224MM Euro while the revenues climbed to 4.46 Billion Euro – a 17.3 percent increase.

The good result was fueled by acquisitions of the british TV Station Five, the DVD mail order house Columbia House, and the print publishing company Motor-Presse.

Bertelsmann CFO Rabe did not comment on company plans for going public. While a major Belgium stock holder (GBL) wants to offer their 25.1 percent of Bertelsmann shares to the public, the Mohn family, which owns the majority of Bertelsmann, seems to prevent this move. In order to buy shares back from GBL, according to German press reports, Bertelmanns might get rid off their music business.

Posted at 06:57 AM     |

Mon - May 1, 2006

System Updates Files Stored On a Target Wireless Device With Current Versions

McAfee today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted the company U.S. Patent No.: 7,024,432 entitled "Updating Computer Files on Wireless Data Processing Devices," which covers various systems, programs and processes for updating wireless devices.

In particular, the technology can update a file on a wireless device with a more up-to-date version of the same file that exists on another device. According to one of many examples falling within the purview of the patented technology, a wireless communication link is established between a wireless device and another device that has a more up-to-date version of a particular file. First, it is determined whether a portion of the more up-to-date version is already stored on the wireless device. Then, the file may be downloaded from the other device beginning with any portion of the file that is already stored on the wireless device. When a full copy of the more up-to-date version of the file is stored on the wireless device, a current version of the file may be replaced with the more up-to-date version. Also, any portions of less up-to-date versions of the file may be discarded if they are not subsequently needed.

Wireless devices might only be connected for short periods of time and at irregular intervals. In accordance with the principles of the patented technology, an update download can occur incrementally and begin with any portion of the more up-to-date version that already exists on the wireless device.

"This technology caters to wireless environments," said Victor Kouznetsov, senior vice president of McAfee Mobile. "To accommodate updating wireless devices, portions of updates may be stored as and when they become available."

Posted at 08:59 PM     |

New Online Magazine for Advertising Industry

Neotrope, an entertainment content and media company established in 1983, announced today the formal
launch of Advertising Industry Newswire (http://www.AdvertisingIndustryNewswire.com), an online magazine with news,
commentary, podcasts, articles and feature content covering the ad business from broadcast to Web.

Posted at 08:44 PM     |

SMART cars for the US?

Today, Klaus Meier, head of sales of the Mercedes car group, made clear that Mercedes hasn't ruled out the option to sell their popular smart cars in the US. According to Reuters, Meier said that there would be a market for the two-seat model in the US. Smart is a joint venture of Mercedes and Swiss watch manufacturer SWATCH. The name stands for SWATCH Mercedes ART.

Smart Cars are very popular in larger cities in Europe where gas prices and parking became an issue. With their more than 50 MPG and top speeds of over 90 MpH, smart cars offer are often used as commuter and city cars. The model (fortwo coupe) shown above, sells for approximately $19000 in Europe. It is unclear if Mercedes would offer similar pricing in the US.

More about the smart car: Watch "The Da Vinci Code", which will open on May 19th worldwide.

Posted at 06:49 PM     |

Cylon HeadCam

The Cylon Digital HeadCam System is a portable, hands free digital video recording device for sound and video. The HeadCam System allows up to 400 hours of full color video storage and comes with an instant Playback Screen (720 x 480) and a customized AV4 100 GB DVR. It uses time and date stamping and is a proposed solution for wardens, fire fighters et cetera. As German online news site www.heise.de reports, videos are seen as valid proves of evidence in court trials in the UK.

Posted at 07:30 AM     |

Sun - April 30, 2006

Finally ready: Video Disk Recorder 1.4

It took Klaus Schmidinger quite a while to finish and release his Video Disk Recorder. But today he made the final version of the VDR software (v 1.4) available for free. The linux based VDR runs under SuSE Linux 10.0 (kernel 2.6.13) and any other Linux distribution and is a part of a software and hardware project, which uses a basic PC design, digital satellite receivers from Siemens, and a DVB Card driver from LinuxTV project. VDR 1.4 adds support for VPS (Video Programming System), automatic update of channel data, multi channel audio, and plugins. You can download VDR 1.4.0 right here.

Posted at 11:52 AM     |

SAP on shopping tour (again)

In 2005, SAP spend about 242 Million Euros (about $300,000,000) for acquisitions. SAP CFO Werner Brandt wants to spend more money for acquisitions this year. In an interview with weekly news paper "Euro am Sonntag", Brand confirms that SAP is mostly interested in smaller companies and their technology. While Oracle is following with its acquisitions, focusing on large companies, a different strategy, SAP CEO Henning Kagermann explains that acquisitions are only the second best strategy, "organic growth" would be better.

Posted at 08:40 AM     |

Chinese business man buys used fighter jet on ebay

According to German news magazine "Der Spiegel", which is quoting the Chinese news paper "Xin Jing Bao", the Chinese business man Zhang Cheng wanted to acquire a military jet on ebay for $24,730. The jet, which used to belong to the Checkoslavian air force, flew the last time in 1995 and its currently stored in Lewiston, Idaho. Potential buyer Zhang is not sure if he can get the jet due export restrictions.

Posted at 08:11 AM     |

Fri - April 28, 2006

Steve Ballmer about Apple

Steve Ballmer was interviewed by German newspaper "Die WELT" and answered questions about Apple and his thoughts about running Windows on a Mac. After asking Steve if he has a "Apple Computer", he says that he does not have a Mac nor a iPod. " Of course, I have to know the devices. We have to know what the competitors do".

Die WELT: But couldn't you just buy a Mac without hesitation since Apple opened up their machines for Windows?

Ballmer: No, we prefer real PCs.

Die WELT: Was it a satisfaction that Apple had to give in?

Ballmer: Honestly, I don't think that it is that important. Actually, it is relatively expensive if a user gets a separate Windows OS for his Mac. Not a lot of people will do this.

Die WELT: Apple is leading in the Music business as well. Does this bother you?

Ballmer: No question, it would have been better if the iPod would have been a Microsoft invention. The device is really popular. Apple didn't invent anything new. They just combined existing technologies in a smart way. They succeeded to create a nice package which bundles Music services, devices and software.

Die WELT: Is Apple's success reason enough to copy them?

Ballmer: This wasn't the last word in this competition. Over the next years, a lot of things will happen in the market of portable devices. Who wants to carry different devices to listen to Music, to play games, to take pictures or to communicate with others? A small, integrated device will master many functions. We won't be simply watching this development.

Die WELT: Could your company create such a do-it-all device?

Ballmer: We are open when it comes to build hardware if it is necessary to sell software. A good example is the Xbox. So far we thougth the Xbox is rather the exception than the rule. But we became more open for the exceptions.

Die WELT: Is Apple unbeatable?

Ballmer: Which company would be able to compete with Apple at these days? It can only be Microsoft or Apple stays without any serious competitor. I think, everybody deserves some competition.

Die WELT: Wouldn't it be smarter to team up with established hardware manufacturers?

Ballmer: While we do one thing, we shouldn't prevent something else. We will continue to work with manufacturers for cell phones, PDAs and also PCs. But every now and then, where it makes sense, Microsoft could build its own devices. We will let you know what they will look like when the time is ready.

More on www.welt.de

Posted at 07:22 AM     |

Thu - April 27, 2006

Yahoo wants to conquer the living room - too

It took Yahoo a little bit more than a week after buying Software manufacturer Meedio to announce the first beta version of Yahoo! Go for TV. The media center for PCs allows users to record Video, Music, and Photos. It is works hand in hand with Flickr, Yahoo's Video Search tool and Launchcast. It is Yahoo's most important attempt to attack Google (and others like Apple and Microsoft) with an integrated media suite for the desktop. Yahoo has, just like Apple, great contacts to the media industry and should be able to extend its reach with the right combination of content and software.

Posted at 07:00 AM     |

Mon - April 24, 2006

First Internet-based Office suite

SAN JOSE, Calif., April 24 /PRNewswire/ -- ThinkFree, Inc., a provider of office productivity software, today announced ThinkFree Online(R), a free Web service that gives busy families, students and business professionals an easy way to manage tasks and keep everyone up-to-date.

ThinkFree Online is the first Internet-based office productivity suite to blend the best of the Internet's collaboration features with Microsoft Office suite compatibility. Novice users and IT enthusiasts alike will find the three applications -- ThinkFree Write for word processing, ThinkFree Calc for spreadsheet management and ThinkFree Show for creating
presentations -- intuitive to learn and use. Simply register at http://www.thinkfree.com to begin experiencing the suite's unique set of creativity and communications tools for connecting with family, friends and business colleagues.

Posted at 07:14 AM     |

Sat - April 22, 2006

Four trends which will change the publishing world

Seth Godin believes in the power of the Internet: Blogs and the Internet will kill magazines, "The shakeout is happening before our eyes". Having been an Editor and Editor-in-Chief myself, for print magazines, I don't doubt Seth's statement in general. Just look at Think Secret's post about the declining sales of Mac magazines over the last 10 years. The circulation is declining and it is a real problem for magazines, which used to be the sole information source for so many consumers before the Internet got big. Of course, it is not only an issue for mac magazines, other magazines are affected as well. However, these questions remain to be answered: Is the Internet really killing the magazine business? What are the strategies magazine publishers should adopt?

Early Adopter vs. Social Class

Tech magazines, like Macworld or PCWorld, were the first who felt the impact of the Internet. First, they benefited from the internet boom, then they lost some of their readers to the Internet. The trend shows that high tech magazines were affected the most so far because the Internet users correlated highly with high tech magazine readers. It is also clear that high tech magazines appeal to certain social classes (highly educated and middle class) more than to others. The members of th educated middle class are the early adopters of the Internet. What's next?

As readers of other magazines mature and are using the Internet on a daily basis, even traditional magazines will be affected by the Internet because their readers will embrace the new medium more. The only barrier which seems to remain is access to the new medium. People in rural areas and people without access to the Internet (based on their position in a social system) will remain to use yellow-press magazines and even more importantly, the TV. Bottom-line, magazines who appeal to the educated middle class will be hit the most. High tech over no tech.

Online Content vs. Offline Content

Magazine readers prefer the Internet for their news consumption. To stay on top of daily trends and events in their fast changing world they have to know about what is changing their life today. Therefore, short news clips, headline news, and ticker news are the appropriate vehicle - the Internet is the ideal delivery platform for this kind of content.

However, when it comes to deeper analysis and longer articles, the Internet is not the preferred medium for most users. Print offers higher quality, the medium is completely mobile, and is not limited by the battery life of a device. As devices and technology matures, more content will be consumed digitally. For the next 5 to 7 years, magazines publishers should focus on the story behind the news and they should make use of the qualities of their medium: to be ultra-mobile and readable.

Layout vs. Text

Another important and distinguishing factor seems to be the visual component of reading. Magazines offer highly sophisticated and structured layouts, which make reading easy and fun. Fueled by matching type faces, the power of images, and well balanced headlines, magazines have a clear advantage over the mostly text based layout methods of the Internet.

As soon as the Internet will mature and offer the same layout quality as print, readers will change their reading habits. Technology is advancing faster than people gaining social mobility. I think, that within the next 3 to 4 years online layouts will be as readable and matured as their printed counterparts.

Journalists vs. TAPpers

Last but not least, the question about content quality. The majority of the blogs are not professional by any journalistic standards. As a professional journalist, I spend premium time to plan, research, write, and change my story. Bloggers follow a TAP-approach: type-and-publish. Journalists have to follow certain ethics and standards. I know my toolkit and know how to write a feature, a comment, or a report. Blogs are basically comments and more often PR tools for the corporate world.

Professional online journalists, however, can tell you a story about their last 6 years. First, they received millions of dollars from their publisher to build online editorials, then their budgets where slashed to zero, and it was all about content syndication. Now, after 5 hard years, the professional online journalism seems to be recovered.

Magazine publishers SHOULD see the Internet more as an opportunity than a threat. I believe that the next 12 to 24 months will decide about who is going to make it in the digital world. Conservative publisher, hoping the print medium will grow, will face hard times. Most of the ad revenues will shift away to the Internet over the next 5 to 10 years. Print content will become more expensive and more focused in order to survive.

Posted at 10:01 AM     |

Big things to come

Apple has put itself under pressure. The company's quarter results look good, but are also an indicator that the Mac company has to react soon. While hardware sales seem to level off, the Mac OS X usage (measured by computers browsing the internet) seems to do the same as well. Net Applications (NA) is reporting that the Mac OS X usage has been level during the first quarter for 2006. NA also sees the Intel switch as a roadblock for further growth. Having the opportunity to run Windows on Intel Macs, however, should rather help Apple to gain market share.

Posted at 08:36 AM     |

Fri - April 21, 2006

Wed - April 19, 2006

Mac Pro

How long will it take until Apple will announce the new Mac Pros? On March 15th, before Apple announced Boot Camp, I was speculating that the Mac company is going let users run Windows on all Macs. I also thought that Apple would wait with this move until they have the new Mac Pros. Obviously, Apple surprised not only me, but others as well. Releasing Boot Camp puts more pressure on Apple to prep the new Mac Pros sooner. My bet, I don't expect them later than end of July. Apple's Q4 would be an ideal quarter to release such a product line. They would be able to ship enough units to satisfy the demand without creating months of backlogs.

Posted at 10:01 PM     |

Apple surprises Wallstreet

CUPERTINO, California—April 19, 2006—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2006 second quarter ended April 1, 2006. The Company posted revenue of $4.36 billion and a net quarterly profit of $410 million, or $.47 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $3.24 billion and a net profit of $290 million, or $.34 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 29.8 percent, equivalent to the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 43 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple shipped 1,112,000 Macintosh® computers and 8,526,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 4 percent growth in Macs and 61 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter.

“We’ve generated over $10 billion in revenue and almost $1 billion in earnings in the first half of fiscal 2006,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Our transition to Intel processors is going very well, and our music business just experienced another quarter of outstanding growth.”

“We’re very pleased to report the second highest quarterly sales in Apple’s history, resulting in year-over-year revenue growth of 34 percent and earnings growth of 41 percent,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the third quarter of fiscal 2006, we expect revenue of about $4.2 to $4.4 billion. We expect GAAP earnings per diluted share of about $.39 to $.43, including an estimated $.04 per share expense impact from non-cash stock-based compensation, translating to non-GAAP EPS of about $.43 to $.47.”

Posted at 09:50 PM     |

What about Yahoo!

22 percent less revenues - this is the number Internet giant Yahoo reported for their first quarter on Tuesday. Is this good or bad news? While investors seemed to be okay with the results, it still raises major concerns about how competitive is the Filo's and Yang's company.

Google and Microsoft are producing headlines on a frequent basis and especially Google is moving faster into new territories than any other Internet search company. Susan L. Decker, Yahoo's CFO, believes that the company is in a healthy state and told analysts that Yahoo had a 15 to 20 percent gain in search queries during the quarter. Again, is this good enough? Let's put it this way, since Terry S. Semel took over the Internet, he had a clear story in his mind - bring the company closer to the movie and media industry. I believe that this is definitely the right way to go. While Google will be the technological leader, Yahoo has to be the content king in order to survive. Semel's investment has yet to pay off - but I am sure it will.

Posted at 07:26 AM     |

Tue - April 18, 2006

Publisher in crisis - First-quarter profit falls sharply for Knight Ridder

By Pete Carey
Mercury News

Knight Ridder reported disappointing first-quarter earnings Monday as pessimism over the San Jose company's acquisition by McClatchy and the newspaper industry's future drove McClatchy's stock to a new yearly low.

Shares in McClatchy sank to $44.10 Monday before closing at $44.40. That lowers the value of the Sacramento company's $4.5 billion acquisition of Knight Ridder -- which McClatchy is paying for in part with its own stock -- to $4.2 billion.

McClatchy shares have dropped 16.6 percent since the sale was announced March 13. The stock last traded below $45 a share in November 2001. Knight Ridder shares closed at $61.12 on Monday, down 1.2 percent.

Knight Ridder, which owns the Mercury News, reported first-quarter earnings of $28.4 million or 42 cents a share, down from $60.5 million or 79 cents a share for the first quarter of last year. Operating revenue of $739.9 million was up $28.1 million, a 3.9 percent increase over 2005.

Total advertising revenue was up 1 percent, circulation revenue down 1.2 percent and operating profit down 20.4 percent.

Excluding costs of the sale and expensing stock options, operating profit was down 10.5 percent.

Weak ad revenue in Akron, Ohio, and Philadelphia accounted more than a third of the drop in profit, Knight Ridder said. In Akron, ad revenue was down 10.9 percent, and in Philadelphia, where Knight Ridder publishes the Inquirer and Daily News, revenue was down 5.5 percent.

McClatchy plans to sell the Akron and Philadelphia papers along with nine others, including the Mercury News. The company is keeping 20 Knight Ridder papers that fit its goal of owning newspapers in high growth areas.

While ad revenue for the 12 papers to be sold was down 0.4 percent, there were positive results at several of the papers McClatchy is selling. Overall ad revenue was up 8.6 percent at the Contra Costa Times, 6.1 percent at the Mercury News and 4.6 percent at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Ad revenue increased 2.3 percent at the 20 papers McClatchy is retaining.

Increased newsprint costs cut into profit, as did a new requirement for expensing stock options and costs associated with selling the company. Interest rate expense was $31.2 million, up from $17.2 million from last year.

``The quarter was challenging,'' said Knight Ridder Chairman and Chief Executive Tony Ridder in a statement. ``With total ad revenue up only 1 percent and with the persistence of the soft revenue patterns across the industry for many months now -- employment and real estate excepted -- we continue to look to the second half for improvement.''

Ridder said ``two bright spots'' were Knight Ridder Digital's performance, where online revenue was $51.1 million, up 36.5 percent, and targeted publication revenue was $50.1 million, up 23.9 percent.

Knight Ridder joins other newspaper companies reporting poor first quarter profits, noted Chuck Richards, vice president and lead analyst of Outsell, which tracks the media business.

The New York Times' profit declined 20 percent, excluding a one-time gain of $68 million last year on the sale of its headquarters; the Tribune Co.'s was down 28 percent; Gannett's down 11.5 percent; McClatchy's profit down 14 percent; and Media General down 6.1 percent. Online revenue, while growing rapidly, is still small and not nearly enough to counter declines in the print side of the business, Richards said. ``We can look for additional consolidation and reshuffling.''

Posted at 07:01 AM     |

Mon - April 17, 2006

Crack the da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code involves a thrilling murder investigation that unearths a secret that could change the course of history. The film opens May 19th worldwide The quest, which began April 17th requires skill, intellect, and perseverance. Over a span of 24 days ending May 11th, you will encounter unique challenges.

Posted at 09:12 PM     |

Gimp 2.2.11 released

Gimp 2.2.11 is now available. It addresses more than a dozen of bugs:

Bugs fixed in GIMP 2.2.11

=========================

- fixed handling of EXIF data in JPEG plug-in (bug #303383)

- let gimptool use pkg-config to determine compiler and linker flags at run-time (bug #324761)

- added GTK+ category in gimp.desktop file (bug #328012)

- fixed guides scripts to allow guides at the right and bottom (bug #328320)

- fixed icons in color picker buttons in Levels tool (bug #325745)

- fixed parameter check in Compressor plug-in

- made the internal help browser the default for all platforms (bug #329888)

- fixed handling of alpha channel in Gaussian Blur plug-in (bug #331051)

- fixed incorrect bitshifts in Win Icon plug-in (bug #330692)

- fixed a potential crash in the Animation Playback plug-in (bug #328919)

- corrected tile cache size in Unsharp Mask plug-in (bug #331344)

- fixed the import of SVG circles

- fixed rounding of resolution in BMP plug-in (bug #332501)

- fixed resolution handling in PSD load plug-in

- store resolution when saving in the PSD file format (bug #310426)

- fixed crash in Revert function (bug #333568)

- flush the projection before reading from it (bug #332933)

- fixed MMX instructions on Pentium II machines (bug #162778)

- fixed possible crash on closing a dockable (bug #338286)

Posted at 07:32 AM     |

Sub Marine Explorer

German news magazine "Der Spiegel" has an excellent story about a historical treasure, the sub marine "Sub Marine Explorer", which was build around 1865. The sub was discovered by Jim Delgado at the beach of San Telmo in Panama.

Posted at 07:29 AM     |

Tue - April 11, 2006