Blogger presses Gates for IE8 answers

No 'deep secret' about browser, he says, but Web developers say secrecy's a प्रॉब्लम

Bill Gates was surprised to hear that Microsoft Corp.'s secrecy over the next version of its browser has alienated Web developers, a Web standards advocate and blogger said today.

Relations between developers and designers and the team working on the upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 have become increasingly rocky, but developers' simmering discontent has recently boiled over. In comments attached to posts on the Microsoft blog dedicated to the browser, developers have chastised Microsoft for not following through on browser-upgrade promises, for not supporting crucial Web standards and, most of all, for not keeping them in the loop.

Molly Holzschlag, one of 10 influential bloggers who met with the Microsoft chairman for an hour on Tuesday, pressed Gates to explain why the IE information spigot has been turned off. "Something seems to have changed, where there is no messaging now for the last six months to a year going out on the IE team," Holzschlag said, according to a transcript she posted on her blog. "They seem to have lost the transparency that they had. This conversation [between Web developers and the IE team] seems to have been pretty much shut down, and I'm very concerned as to why that is."

"I'll have to ask [IE General Manager] Dean [Hachamovitch] what the hell is going on," Gates replied. "I mean, we're not, there's not like some deep secret about what we're doing with IE."

"But they're not letting people talk about it," Holzschlag continued. "I do realize that there is a new engine, there is some other information, and this information is not being made public. We are being asked not to talk about it. So, I'm concerned about that."

"He was clearly surprised by the news," said Holzschlag today in a telephone interview. "You could see that from his reaction. And yes, he was angry. To me, he seemed very concerned that the message [between Microsoft and Web developers] got broken."

Gates defended Hachamovitch as the dialogue between Gates and Holzschlag continued. "There's a paradox about disclosure," Gates said, "which is when you're far away from doing something you're super open; when you're very close to doing something you're open; when you're making your cut list of what you can do and not do, then particularly because ... well ... "

"It sets expectations and that causes trouble?" asked Holzschlag।

"Yeah, and so I don't know where Dean is in terms of if he's willing to commit what's in IE8 and what's not in IE8. In terms of standards support, he'll see that it's a glass half-full. It adds a bunch of new stuff we didn't have before, it doesn't add everything that everybody wants us to do," said Gates.

Little post, big hostility

It may have been coincidental, but a day after the Holzschlag-Gates exchange, Hachamovitch disclosed on the team's blog that the next version would be called IE8. And at the end of the post, Hachamovitch hinted that the information drought may be coming to a close. "You will hear a lot more from us soon on this blog and in other places. In the meantime, please don't mistake silence for inaction," he wrote.

But the plea fell on deaf ears. As happened last Friday when another post received a chilly reception, Hachamovitch's post was slammed by frustrated Web developers and users. As of Thursday afternoon, more than 250 had left comments. The following is a small sampling:

"Maybe for you it's just a game, but for us developers, who have to spend 20% to 30% of our front-end dev time implementing work-arounds for your browsers' bugs and lack of standards support, it hurts to even try to smile at that post," said someone identified as Yann. "You really don't get it. This post makes it blatantly obvious."

"Please, just go ahead and close this blog," added Cal Jacobson. "I'm serious: There's no actual discussion here -- it's just a series of proclamations by the IE team member unlucky enough to pull the short straw this month, followed by reactions by Web developers, which apparently are ignored."

Dave had a different take. "Wow, that was poorly calculated. For months, interested parties (including former colleagues) have begged and pleaded Microsoft for information about IE8," he wrote. "Now, with everyone's attention and an opportunity to impress the Web development community with substance, this blog instead opens with a substance-free post about product's upcoming name. Did I miss the joke, or was the joke on me?"

And finally, someone using the name "Irritated senior manager" pinned the blame on Hachamovitch. "In 12 months, your policy of silence has attracted more negative perception for the product that you manage than for any other product at any time in Microsoft's history.

"However good IE8 may or may not be, for the first time in the browser's history the result of your use of 'omerta' will mean that most developers won't really care," the post said. "Gaining acceptance will now be a great deal harder than it might otherwise have been, and much harder than should ever have been necessary."

Cisco warns of bug in desktop software

It could allow unauthorized software to run on a Windows PC

Cisco Systems Inc. is advising Windows users of its Cisco Security Agent software to upgrade the product because of a security bug.

The flaw lies in a driver used by the client software. By sending maliciously crafted data to the PC, attackers could create a buffer overflow condition in the Windows kernel, causing the system to crash.

Security firm Secunia rated the crash flaw "moderately critical," but the vulnerability could also be used by attackers to run unauthorized software on the Windows machine, Cisco warned.

Cisco released hot fixes for the bug Wednesday. A large number of Cisco products install this agent, including the Cisco Security Manager, Cisco Unified Communications Manager and the Cisco Voice Portal.

If attackers find a way to exploit this flaw to run code, it could become a serious security problem.

"Back in 2004, such a vulnerability would probably have led to a flurry of noisy network worms," wrote Daniel Wesemann, a handler at the SANS Internet Storm Center, in a blog posting. "Today, drive-by installs of spyware are more likely but at least as damaging. The bottom line is still the same: If you are using the vulnerable component, patch as soon as possible."

The buffer overflow can be caused by sending a malicious TCP packet to ports 139 or 445, the ports used by the Microsoft Server Message Block file-sharing protocol.

Google Docs easily tops online rivals in visitors, research firm says

Statistics show a sevenfold increase in traffic for Google's apps suite during October

Google Inc.'s Google Docs software has cemented its position as the leading suite of online office applications, based on unique-visitor statistics released Thursday by a Web-audience research firm showing Google holding a commanding lead over start-up rivals as well as Microsoft Corp.

The Web site for the free, still-in-beta Google Docs suite snared more than 1.4 million unique visitors in October, seven times more than it did in the same month last year, according to Boston-based Compete Inc.

Becky Bitzenhofer, a Compete analyst, wrote in a blog posting, that a "user interface overhaul and subsequent intense marketing in June seems to have ignited traffic" to the Google Docs site.

Bitzenhofer also attributed some of Google's gains to Microsoft's release of Office 2007 earlier this year. The new version of Microsoft's market-leading desktop suite includes "a whole new interface that is unfamiliar, and potentially frustrating, to the veteran Office user," she wrote.

Google Docs includes a Word-style document editor and an Excel-like spreadsheet application. Both store documents online, enabling multiple users to edit them, though not simultaneously. Bitzenhofer wrote in her posting that she counted users as unique visitors if they simply viewed a document or spreadsheet, thus not requiring that they actually create or edit one.

Google announced a PowerPoint-like application called Presentation last spring and made it available as part of Google Docs in September. But Bitzenhofer didn't include Presentation in her count of visitors to the Google Docs site.

Compete later released a broader set of statistics to the Web 2.0 news site Read/Write Web comparing the Google Docs visitor count with those of Microsoft's Office Live service as well as online rivals such as ThinkFree Inc., Zoho Inc. and Zimbra Inc., which now is owned by Yahoo Inc. Those numbers showed Google with a huge lead, commanding nearly 10 times the traffic of Office Live, its closest rival.

Although the usage of Google Docs has grown relatively quickly, the technology in all likelihood has made little dent in the customer base of Office, which Microsoft claims is used by more than 500 million end users worldwide.

Microsoft has yet to release any statistics on the number of copies of Office 2007 it has sold thus far. But financially, the new Office suite has been a huge boon to the software vendor.

The Office Live service that Microsoft is using to combat Google Docs and other online suites includes a beta product called Office Live Workspace, which complements but doesn't replace Office, as well as a set of applications designed for small businesses. There also has been speculation that Microsoft may convert its low-end Works software suite into an online, ad-supported service.

Western Digital NAS drive blocks full access to media files

Easy to circumvent would-be DRM, but would-be users are livid

Concerned about piracy of multimedia files, Western Digital has disallowed the sharing of multimedia files on its 1T-byte network-attached storage drive, the WD My Book World Edition.

Due to "unverifiable media license authentication," the remote desktop software embedded on the NAS device does not share audio and video files, including MP3, MPEG, AVI and DivX files, according to WD's customer support site .

Access to multimedia files is allowed only by the primary user registered on WD Anywhere Access, the remote desktop client embedded on the NAS device, said Brian Miller, director of marketing at Western Digital.

Anywhere Access is based on the MioNet remote desktop client, which allows users to access, read, edit and share files on remote desktops. The Anywhere Access client allows remote users access to Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and other files, Miller said. Files on the My Book World Edition NAS device can be accessed either through MioNet client software or through Web browsers.

However, it doesn't allow sharing of multimedia files.

The client was built to make file-sharing easy, and the company had no intent to inconvenience customers, Miller said. Miller said multimedia file-sharing might be added to the drive in later generations of the drive, but he wouldn't comment directly on future products.

The problem came to light in a post on the boingboing.net Web site. Author Cory Doctorow quoted a contributor named Gary who attacked Western Digital's move, calling it an extreme attempt to "cripple data devices in order to please Hollywood."

"Just wondering -- who needs a 1 Terabyte network-connected hard drive that is prohibited from serving most media files? Perhaps somebody with 220 million pages of .txt files they need to share?" Gary said in the post.

A workaround is possible for sharing multimedia files, said a user nicknamed Sparrowhawk, who left a comment on the post. "Simple. Just name the file filename-mp3.txt."

"Rename all my thousands of media files due to ridiculous and bogus limitations? No thank you," responded Eain.

Western Digital's Miller declined to comment on the possible workaround.