Sun Microsystems, makers of the Linux-related Solaris, have formed a pact with the Linux-oriented Google. The exchange between the two is that of search technologies (i.e. search bar) and Java Desktop, most notably OpenOffice, which is treading strongly and becomes among the main dangers to Microsoft alongside Web-based Office.

Sun Microsystems Inc. and Google Inc. on Tuesday said they agreed to a multiyear pact for Google to promote Sun’s software technologies in what amounts to a direct challenge of Microsoft Corp.’s dominance of business users’ desktops.

HAT we truly need is not SpamAssassin , but a SpammerAssassin [sic]. We have seen controversial cases where spammers got killed, but taking the law into one’s hand is a desperate and poor solution. However, what else can be done when the law in itself is futile and inherently lacking?

Something evil like comment spam gets blocked in the best of circumstances while nothing is done to penalise or catch the spammers themselves. How long must it take before globalised networks begin to hunt down the spammers, backed by excruciating laws to assist the enforcers? Surely not enough is done. In internationalised networks like the Internet, it is sufficient to have few countries (see spam maps) that are apathetic to spam and make havens for illicit traffic to be dispatched.

I recently joined an initiative to combat and ideally eradicate comment spam altogether. With a few tweaks I also found that SpamAssassin filters out my E-mail spam admirably well, separating ham and spam by putting them in separate boxes. Not all is lost as progress is still being made. Unfortunately, spammers get more ‘crafty’, usually keeping abreast of mail prevention methods. It is a never-ending race.

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N recent years we have seen the rise of (soon the demise of [2, 3]) blogs, as well as various personal homepages. The curious statistics include myself although I began when I was 15 with admittedly poor content. This dates back to the last century and is hence not considered “recent” either. Homepages used to be common habit among academics who wished to disseminate recent work, openly expressing to peers their research interests and showing (off) a list of publications.

This morning my 9-year-old sister approached me and asked for a personal homepage¹. She got envious since her friends have one already. Funny enough, she even wanted her own domain, but I stopped her right there. It was just over a year ago that she asked me to add a photo to a family photos page and I added several albums to the Genealogy section.

Trends appear to evolve and greed mounts enough to justify extending a single page, which soon becomes an independent, stand-alone site. It has become a norm rather than the exception and the ‘entry barrier’ is easier to get by. Several years ago there were only a few ‘brave’ individuals who boasted a page or a blog, but today these are so common that they are merely insignificant. The excess — or the overload as some would prefer to call it — makes visitors less willing to explore. In more and more forms and an increasing number of subscription we are given the input field “homepage” these days. So, individualism it no longer is.

Due to such homepages, it is also easier to access our minds, which as many other things can be used for better or for worse. One thing is for sure: the early years of the 21^st century will be remembered as the days when many people began erecting personal, self-centric sites (as opposed to scattered pages). Consequently, freedom of speech was on the rise (or conversely muted) and privacy jeopardised.

¹ I am afraid her homepage will remain unindexed by crawlers and accessible only to her friends for the time being.

I am still on vacation, but I would be sad to see the blog remaining static. The following are a few pointers that I have accumulated in recent days:

• Linux tablet – running fully-featured Linux on a modern tablet PC
• $100 laptop prototype – a proposal from MIT
• Why would a Linux device be as capable (or more) as any other platform which is expensive and bound to restrictions? See the Slashdot roundup of Web applications. The collection of links therein is makes an excellent proof of the emergence of AJAX in several major aspects of work, e.g. scheduling and spreadsheets. I mentioned this as a future possibility a few days ago and wrote a long essay about it on the plane just a day before coming across the item from Slashdot.

Did you know there was AJAX word processor, AJAX spreadsheet, AJAX calendar, AJAX presentation-building software, AJAX e-mail client, AJAX note-taking software and some other interesting applications, which, deployed on your local server, do not need installation and “just work” in a browser window?

CWORLD.COM are reporting that Google Video, a service that allows users to browse and view a large variety of videos, integrates a media player so that everything can be played in the browser, making it irrespective of the platform.

The service’s videos now play within a Web browser without the need for additional software, says Peter Chane, senior business product manager for Google Video.

Moreover, the previously Windows-only playback service is now available to users whose PCs run the Linux and Mac OS operating systems.

The move makes it rather clear why Microsoft are terribly afraid of Google. Proprietary and incompatibilities with competing platforms have thus far been Windows’ major lock-in factor. Google, who are Linux-oriented, appear to open up the Web, media included. Web-based media players mark a beautiful milestone.

Google Video features are also mentioned in today’s item from the official Google Blog

As we approach the end of yet another year, some might ponder:

“what does each mail management method have in store?

I shall attempt to point out several facts and add my opinions, not necessarily in a most coherent manner. I chose to compose this item as streams of consciousness loosely glued together.

Local Mail

Outlook should not be considered the “gold standard”, i.e. one to compare most applications against. Thunderbird, a Mozilla Mail (Netscape) derivative, can be re-enforced by a powerful set of extensions among an endless ‘pool’. It can then becomes extremely powerful and versatile, much like Mozilla Firefox. It then becomes the most valid benchmark reference, which is rather hard to match.

Themes in Thunderbird are more visually appealing than most (I use an Aqua lookalike theme as shown below) and they are applied to the application as a whole, as broad as it may be in terms of functionality and widegets. Thunderbird is very stable and is — as always expected — cross-platform. Version 1.5 is now in beta and the inimitable Brent O’Connor gave it the thumbs up a couple of days ago.

A shrunk-down screenshot of CrossOver-themed Thunderbird

Also see an older overview and comparison of mine which involved Outlook and Thunderbird.

Personal Remote Server

There is a true danger which lies in remote mail storage, i.e. mail that gets stored elsewhere, as opposed to the owner’s hard-drive. I once discussed the rudimentary choice between Web-based and locally stored mail.

If you opt for a rich on-line mail management tool, seek functionality and speed. I personally like the Zimbra interface a great deal. It requires some decent specifications as well as good bandwidth though. I recently recommended this tool in UseNet, having come across that fascinating Web application only days ago.

There are also free programs that can manage mail on one’s own domain. SquirrelMail is terrible from a productivity point-of-view and NeoMail is buggy. For remote mail and handling of several accounts in tandem I use the latest of Horde (formerly Imp) , which is fantastic. Filters, for example, are very powerful, as previously illustrated. The filters almost make Horde comparbale, efficiency-wise, with local mail clients.

Hosted E-mail Accounts

A few days ago I came across an article which criticised decisions made arrogantly by the GMail (Google Mail) team. Yahoo Mail was said to be superior. The article suggested: Yahoo E-mail delivers that desktop feel most users expect. MSN and Hotmail, on the contrary, no longer see the sun shine. The Microsoft on-line services have accumulated billions in losses despite being default placeholders (front page/home page) in Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer is bundled with Windows and cannot be uninstalled, one might wish to add.

ROWING criticism becomes apparent as personal information on the Internet breaks new boundaries. This recently had CNET ignored by Google. CNET correspondent bluntly disclosed too much information about the personal life of Google CEO, Eric Schmidt. From that damaging article, which among another things, penerated a life of an individual:

“Your search history shows your associations, beliefs, perhaps your medical problems. The things you Google for define you,” Bankston (staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation) said.

The only way to avoid nasty information from ever being dispersed across the Internet is for everyone to recognise the danger of mentioning names. However, it is possibly too late already — too late to revert things, that is. The Web Archive, as controversial as it may seem, takes snapshots of the Internet periodically and makes these snapshots publicly available. Anything that was ever public remains public, perhaps under a few extra layers. Google cache introduces similar issues.

Recruitment agents or bosses can find out a lot about an individual nowadays. As a personalised instance, a search for my name (in Google) brings up approximately 70,000 results. Adding an extra term to query, ‘roy schestowitz microsoft’, for example, will draw a vivid picture of my mental views on the company. There are nearly 1,000 results for such a Web search.

Privacy is in jeopardy and is bound to be completely compromised as time carries on. Names do not have to be ‘contributed’ by will. Rather often these days, somebody else might mention one’s name, which will later be harvested and made available to anyone who ‘googles’ the name and binds it to some context. It was not too hard to discover a fair deal about families of famous IT founders. There needn’t be the will to disclose that information either. Sooner or later it will ‘leak’ and be made easily available due to. Search on the Web, as well as blogging, are a mixture that leads to dissemination and duplication. Take the embarrassing photo of Bill Gatesas a practical example.

On a different yet related topic, search engines slowly embrace spying, whether intentionally so or not, whether it is ethical or not. It is perhaps due to pressure from investors, who urge to do all that is necessary for increased profit. An IPO is never too helpful in that sense. There is a great deal of fuss revolving around the notorious Google cookie. Microsoft have been labelled “guilty” as well for MSN targetted advertising which involves spying, as well cross-site cookies exchange. Technologies advance and allow better monitoring than ever before, which is factor that raises even more concerns.

Has your privacy been broken apart? If not, it is probably just a matter of time.