My esteemed ZDNet colleague Ed Bott, God bless him, wrote a very insightful piece in which he discusses Taiwanese PC mainboard and component manufacturer?? MSI???s challenges of selling Linux-based versions of their netbook, the Wind U90. Apparently, according to MSI, Linux-based versions of their netbook are returned at a rate of four to one compared to Windows-based versions of the same model. Click on the "Read the rest of this entry" link below for more. Now, I don???t have much experience with the Wind. In fact, I???ve never seen one in the wild, and I work with a lot of geeks and jet-setters that own netbooks as secondary computing devices. Guess what? Most of them are Asus Eee PCs...

A six-year-old developer of reflective display technologies has snagged an indoor (albeit heavily sunlit) installation with the New England Patriots. Take a look. What makes Magink's technology interesting is not just the brightness of the picture OR the fact that images including video can be viewed in bright sunlight, BUT the fact that the technology typically uses less power than comparable LED-based displays, according to Gadi Tirosh, chairman of the Israel-based company Magink. Tirosh estimates that nine-square-feet of LEDs would consume about 500 watts, while Magink would use about a fifth of that amount. And, because it doesn't emit light, it will not emit the same sort of heat. You can expect to pay about the same price of slightly...

My post on Google earlier Tuesday was met with mixed reactions. A few folks agreed that, in fact, Google's suite of services is quite slick, long live GOOG, etc. Others, like fellow ZDNet blogger, Michael Krigsman, disagreed pretty strongly. In his response, http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=1059, Michael didn't leave much doubt as to his feelings on Google: Dude, I can assure you that Google is not my friend. Trading partner? Sure. Sometime ally? Maybe. Back-stabbing neighbor? Now we???re getting closer. He did make a particularly good point, one that is easy for Google devotees to forget: Whether or not they realize it, all Google users engage in an implicit business deal with the company. Those amazing, so-called free, tools come at the cost...

Following the recent release of a PoC demonstrating clickjacking in action, Adobe has released a security advisory offering solutions for customers and IT administrators on dealing with the flaw until they releases a Flash player patch before the end of October. "We have just posted a Security Advisory for Flash Player in response to recently published reports of a ???Clickjacking??? issue in multiple web browsers that could allow an attacker to lure a web browser user into unknowingly clicking on a link or dialog. This potential ???Clickjacking??? browser issue affects Adobe Flash Player???s microphone and camera access dialog. A Flash Player update to mitigate the issue will be available before the end of October. In the meantime, users can apply...

ZDNet Education blogger, Christopher Dawson, wrote a post titled, "Google is your friend." Dude, I can assure you that Google is NOT my friend.

Tonight, as you watch the second presidential debate, Google will be watching you to see what you're searching for. It's just another peek into the minds of voters to find out which issues matter most or which are most confusing or unclear. Take, for example, the results of the vice-presidential debate. Republican candidate Sarah Palin keeps talking about how she and John McCain are such "mavericks" yet Googlers must be confused about what exactly that means. Some of the most popular searches of the night: "definition of maverick," "what is a maverick," and "define:maverick."Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden's mention that "theocracy controls the security apparatus" in Iran, Googlers wanted to know the "meaning of theocracy." To follow the most popular...

My Kingdom for Capital Expenditure Funding The current meltdown on Wall Street is definitely having an impact on the technology sector. This week's recent earnings forecast from SAP rather convincingly showed us that the capital markets will adversely impact technology sales. Capital for major corporate projects is still available but is subject to two conditions that are slowing down sales of technology products. Let???s examine each. First, businesses that have long-standing capital funding relationships with major Wall Street firms now find their old banking relationships to be nonexistent or highly constrained. One midmarket firm that I am very close to began noticing a substantial deterioration in their banking relationship at the beginning of this year. They correctly assumed that the...

As I suspected, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel today granted a temporary restraining order against Real's selling its RealDVD software. Real's next hope: a full-blown hearing into a permanent injunction. The judge said she needed more time to fully investigate whether the software in fact violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's prohibition on circumventing copy protection schemes, Wired reports. I'm not satisfied that in fact this technology is not in violation of the DMCA.

Both Obama and McCain have come out in favor of the Open Debate Coalition's call to open the presidential debates for fair use on the Internet, Wired reports. Obama sent a letter to Coalition leader Larry Lessig. He quoted his own letter to Democratic Party chairman last year: The Internet has enabled an extraordinary range of citizens to participate in the political dialogue around this election. Much of that participation will take the form of citizen generated content. We, as a Party, should do everything that we can to encourage this participation??? I am a strong believer in the importance of copyright, especially in a digital age. But there is no reason that this particular class of content needs the...

After years of operation, California based ISP Atrivo/Intercage, a well known Russian Business Network darling, faced the music and was disconnected from the Internet by its upstream provider at the end of September. What happened according to MessageLabs's latest intelligence report, was a brief decline of spam due to the fact that the malware infected hosts couldn't reach the ISP's netblock. Logically, within the next couple of days Intercage's customers quickly switched hosting locations of their botnet's command and control servers, and cybercrime activity quickly got back to normal : "Charged with providing a safe-haven for online scammers, cyber crooks and malware distributors, California-based ISP Intercage (aka Atrivo) was disconnected from the internet on September 20. Pacific Internet Exchange, Intercage???s...