I've packed my bags....

and moved. Yazan Malakha's Journal is now Tech#

Windows Defender Beta 2 is Out

Fresh out of the Oven, Windows Defender Beta 2 is out. Review coming soon. Download Now

Google and the End of Privacy

I'm not particularly fond of Google or their business model; but I make it a point to discuss them every once in a while and chronicle their eventual domination of the world and end privacy. A couple of days ago Google released Google Desktop 3.0 with a significant change. It now provides users with the ability to store their hard drive index on the Google Grid. This of course provides the convenience of being able to search your hard drive index from a remote computer; say you want to search your office computer from home. Although that might be very convenient for some; me included. Google is touching on a sensitive privacy subject; perhaps ending privacy completely. Compare their old statement: “These combined results can be seen only from your own computer; your computer’s content is never sent to Google (or anyone else).” With their explanation of "search across computers" feature.

In order to share your indexed files between your computers, we first copy this content to Google Desktop servers located at Google. This is necessary, for example, if one of your computers is turned off or otherwise offline when new or updated items are indexed on another of your machines. We store this data temporarily on Google Desktop servers and automatically delete older flies, and your data is never accessible by anyone doing a Google search.

Not evil enough? How does the idea of a Gmail hosted service sound like? Yes Google is running a limited public beta of this service. Indexing the content of your Gmail was not enough; Google seeks to index your corporate email too! More on the Gmail blog And the rumor mill keeps on going. Google are to launch an AJAX based WYSIWYG web page editor, a new calendar built into Gmail, Wifi in major cities. It seems Google is going at it in everyway. They're even branching out to traditional media. And have recently acquired dMarc, a radio advertising broker for $102 million dollars, and will shell out an extra $1 billion if they sell enough advertising, with TV advertising in the horizon. So what does Google know about you? Your searches, browsing pattern, email contents, Gtalk conversations (speech2text), my social network (Gtalk and Orkut), desktop content, blog contents, appointments, and location. What you listen to on Radio and what you watch on TV. I wouldn't be surprised if they acquire podscope in the near future to index what podcasts I listen to. All of this is used to serve me the best targeted Adsense Ads possible. All of this available to agencies like the FBI, CIA, etc. Ten days ago, an article in Business Week caught my attention, the author described Google as a race car driver with dreams of the checkered flag, but until his debut on the NASCAR circuit, he pays the bills by trolling the back alleys behind the wheel of a cab and I cannot agree more. Now I wonder when will someone rise up and stop them, or are we to wait for the apocalypse and await a new future where Google's monopoly out shadow’s Microsoft's. Digg It Related Links: EPIC 2014 Google Desktop Reloaded Gilmor Daily A New Desktop

First Looks: Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta 2 Preview

Earlier on Microsoft released a public beta of Internet Explorer 7.0 with web developers as the main target. At a first glance you can see the long wait was worth it. IE7 is better in terms of aesthetics, functionality and performance. It loads much faster than IE 6 and Firefox 1.5. Some might argue that IE loads much faster than Firefox since it's a part of windows; which is a myth disproved by Opera's performance. (to date opera is the fastest graphical browser) Aesthetics First thing that drew my attention (prior to even loading IE 7) is the logo change (new one on the left). I personally find think the new one is better, but I'm not graphics expert. Upon opening the browser you will notice a change to the interface. The simplicity is mind blowing, some might argue this looks like FF, I personally think it looks more like Opera. The menu bar is hidden by default (still accessible via shortcuts / tools > toolbar > classic menu), the location of the bar is peculiar. When enabled the menu will be shown under the address bar, which needs a little bit of getting used to. I won't place much importance on this as I think the average user doesn't actually need the menu bar. Another thing that caught my attention was the use of Mozilla's RSS icon, apparently the guys at Microsoft visited Mozilla offices and agreed that a unified RSS icon is in the user's best interest, as opposed to the originally proposed icons found here. The button placement is well thought of, placing the ones you need most to the left side and the ones you would use less on the right. Tabbed Browsing At Last! We finally have what we've been wanting for years. Although Tabbed Browsing has been available for IE 6 for a while now (through MSN Search Bar or 3rd Party Plugings). Worth noting that Netcaptor were the first to introduce Tabbed Browsing back in 1997, while Opera developed it back in 1995 and introduced it in Opera 4 in 2000, Avant Browser and Maxthon also had this feature long before FireFox arrived in 2004. Quicktabs This is probably my favorite feature. Quicktabs (accessible via ctrl+q, or the third icon from the left) is a preview feature that allows you to see what's on your tabs, very handy, this is similar to Firefox’s foXpose extension. Web Standards Compliance & CSS Fixes Gone are the days IE would render stuff like this. According to the IE blog Microsoft intends to fully comply with web standards, CSS 2 in particular (CSS 2.1 once it's recommended) . DHTML rendering noticabely improved. The only site I visited today which didn't render properly was http://uk.msn.com/ I presume it would work out fine with most hacked and non-hacked CSS code. I didn't thoroughly test this, so this is just a presumption; you can read more on this on the IE Blog I would appreciate your feedback on this. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) For those of you who don't know what RSS is, I suggest you check the wikipedia entry RSS functionality in IE 7 is superb. It allows for OPML import and export meaning that Microsoft won't lock you in and force you to use their platform. It allows for enclosures which can potentially make it a great Podcasts aggregator. And according to this video it seems to be cross application. It allows communications with other applications using the RSS API, basically this means if you add an RSS feed to your IE7 and you have another application that utilizes IE7's RSS API it will be added their too. IE7 automatically formats RSS feeds in a nice readable formats, it even highlights changes since last check, very useful! I did have a problem with Jordan Planet's RSS feed, their ATOM feed worked fine though. You can check Dave Winer's opinion on IE7's RSS ClearType & Zooming IE7 utilizes ClearType which makes webpages more readable especially on LCD Screens. The zooming feature is very useful but quite jittery when used on machines with no graphics acceleration. ClearType Screenshot Magnifying Screenshot Multi Engine Search Bar The title says it all. Search providers can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/default_new.mspx notably missing are Google's Logo next to their link ;-) Technorati & Wikipedia (I'm sure it will have Encarta at some point)! I hope these will be added soon. Security Now before we go on with this one I want to emphasise that security is an ongoing job, anyone who claims their product is 100% secure is just being arrogant. Microsoft had it's downs, but so did all other rivals, including Firefox which had 26 security vulnerabilities 6 of which were marked as Highly Critical! Microsoft is doing a great job at securing IE 7 here are a few pointers

• ActiveX controls are disabled by default in Internet Explorer Version 7. The ActiveX Input TYPE=FILE control no longer submits a fully-qualified path; it now submits only a filename. The ActiveX control for XEnroll certificate enrollment was removed from Windows Vista and replaced with a new control.
• Antiphishing Filter Built In Cyota Inc, Internet Identity and MarkMonitor will regularly supply information to Microsoft on thousands of confirmed phishiping websites to help ensure the URL reputation service is running with the latest information on known attackers (more at: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/11/17/494040.aspx )
• Safer Protocol Defaults: Weaker SSLv2 protocol are disabled, TLSv1 protocol are enabled. Hence IE users will negotiate HTTPS connections using SSLv3 or TLSv1; you will not notice any difference in the user experience, it's a silent improvement in security.

You can find more at http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie/releasenotes/default.aspx Better AJAX Support IE7 support a scriptable native version of XMLHTTP. This can be instantiated using the same syntax across different browsers. The addition of XMLHttpRequest is very nice, but for really advanced AJAX applications to run without ActiveX alerts XMLDocument and XSLDocument are needed as well. International Domain Names with no Add ons So you can finally use those non-latin domains you've registered (example arabic domains) http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/12/19/505564.aspx Oh and I forgot.... PRINTING ;) What's Missing/What's Wrong! Missing:

• The absence of a download manager and ability to pause downloads. (Note: IE6 & 7 do resume downloads if the server supports it, provided that you do not try downloading until the connection is resumed)
• XMLHttpRequest is only half of the AJAX toolkit!
• We still have that awkward find popup screen with no highlighting capability
• Viewing source code displays the source in an unformatted colorless notepad!
• Ability to rearrange the tabs in toolbar is missing
• IE7 Still Lacks the Shift + Enter for sites that end with .net (if anyone knows of a key for that or .org please let me know)
• Like I said before it doesn't have wikipedia or technorati in search options which is a bit of a disappointment.
• Themes! I cannot stress this enough, loads of people end up downloading spyware/adware just because they want to customize their IE experience.

Bugs So Far:

• Inability to open drupal RSS 2.0 feeds
• One site rendering funny (http://uk.msn.com/)
• Blogger editor doesn't display what you're typing!
• Incompatible with MSN Messenger Produced Chat Logs (Same with MSN Messenger Live)
• I didn't experience this myself but I heard some people had trouble uninstalling

Downside of all this:

• You need to have a genuine version of windows in order to test drive IE 7.0
• You still have to reboot after installing IE, but I guess that's because it's part of windows.
• Available for I32 bit platform on Windows XP only. WinXP 64 and 2003 Server editions coming soon

Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta 2 publicly available

Title says it all Download Here Note: You need a valid copy of windows in order to install.. review coming soon [Via The IE Blog] [Check Channel 9 Interview]

The IT Crowd

UK's Channel 4 is airing a new comedy, "The I.T. Crowd", on the web a week before it's TV broadcast. The I.T. Crowd is a new sitcom from Graham Linehan (Father Ted, Black Books) and producer Ash Atalla (The Office). Sounds promisng!

The high-rise towers of Reynholm Industries are full of go-getters, success stories, and winners... apart from in the basement. While their beautiful colleagues work in fantastic surroundings, Jen, Roy and Moss lurk below ground, scorned and mocked by their co-workers as geeky losers, doomed never to make it back into normal society.

Watch Here

Why I love bots

Yazan says: who created you? Encarta® Instant Answers says: I was built by Conversagent, Inc. in Sunnyvale, CA and New York, NY. Yazan says: not by god? Encarta® Instant Answers says: [Service too busy] Yazan says: didn't god create you? Encarta® Instant Answers says: I am a simple computer. Let humans worry about theological matters, I say. OK, should we get back to the kind of questions I was designed to answer? :-) What is the country with the smallest area? If you don't know, just ask me.

Review: Windows Live Messenger

So awaiting in my inbox today was an invitation to test Windows Live Messenger (WLM from now on). Just when MSN started to become a verb in certain regions of the world, at least mine anyway. Microsoft decides to change the name into Windows Live Messenger. The program still installs on "C:\Program Files\MSN Messenger". The name also suggests it won't be available for other platforms. Naming aside I'm not that impressed. Click to expand Design: By default the top bar is hideous shade of bright orange, which can be changed with a few mouse clicks; I've changed mine into blue as you can see from the screenshots. What annoyed me most is that Groups & Contacts kept on expanding when I hovered them, thankfully the later can be disabled from the options menu, and the first can avoided by moving your mouse outside of the MSN box. There's no way to hide your tabs unless you declare your computer as a shared computer which in turn won't save your messages / contact list / login information. Features: Here's a list of the few notable features of WLM.

• Better Contact Management [screenshot here] You can now add your contact into a group immediately, those who sort their contacts by group will benefit from this feature, you will no longer have to add a user then drag them into the appropriate group afterwards. You can also attach contact information to any user on your list, there will be immediately synchronized with your hotmail or Live Mail contacts. Surprisingly adding a birth date to a contact doesn't immediately reflect on your calendar, but then again this is just a beta.
• File Sharing [screenshot here] This is rather amusing, WLM was unable to recognize my antivirus software ("Windows OneCare") and offered me a free Antivirus Software which turned out to be Windows OneCare again! Now with file sharing you create folders for each contact and files into them, files will be automatically synchronized with them, very useful if say you're working on the same files / projects. As always .exe, .pif, etc are blocked to prevent sharing virus infected files.
• Offline Messaging Name says it all, you can now send instant messages to your offline contacts and they'll receive them once they get online. This feature is nothing new it was built into ICQ back in 1998!
• Search Contacts Box This is quite useful for those who manage huge lists, or if you want to send a message to an offline contact. You can type in part of the name/email address of any contact you have on your list and your list will be narrowed down to them.

How to Get It

• Legal Way: is to either wait for the final version, or request to beta test it on www.live.com
• Not So Legal Way: Download MSN Messenger 8 off Microsoft, then use MSN Proxy patch

$5678 Bucks for running Windows XP on MacTel

As of this posting $5678 USD have been pledged by several bloggers if you can get Windows XP to boot on a MacTel. Some people might wonder why anyone would want to dual boot Mac OS X with Windows, and the answer is quite simple. Just because you can. Or perhaps just because you need to. For instance Keynote is miles ahead of Microsoft PowerPoint. On the other hand many enterprise software available for Windwos isn't available for Mac. Having the two on the same machine can save you time and money. Contest Rules Some sites that can put you on the right track:

• OSx86 Project
• Apple Intel Faq
• ELILO

Free VOIP by VOIP Stunt

It seems a new player is jumping into the VoIP bandwagon almost everyday now. Skype, Gizmo, OpenWengo, Google Talk, you name it. Clearly Skype is the market leader. By offering free PC-2-PC VoIP calls and dirt cheap SkypeOut service Skype managed to create a ripple effect all across the internet, but cheap is not free. Enter VOIP Stunt Hideous interface aside; it seems VOIP stunt is offering free calling to landlines in 36 countries, including Australia, Austria, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom (Canada and the United States are on the list as well). Sweet? It gets even better! The software promises no adware, malware, or spyware, which is a major plus, but I still attach my standard privacy policy warning. I still haven't tested the service due to bandwidth congestion at the office, so I can't really recommend it (I might review it later on) but feel free to Try It

A good addition to your mobile bookmarks

Are you an internet junkie? Can't stop checking blogs using your mobile/pda/etc.? Google to the rescue! It seems Google has a Skweezer like service, that will optimize any website for viewing on a mobile phone or PDA Try It (http://www.google.com/gwt/n)

Correct me if I'm wrong...

But last time I checked KDE was copying Windows. Times must have changed; it seems Vista is copying KDE. Click here to download video [WMV 25 MB; 20 Minutes] Moving on... I won't even comment on Timberlake's presence! A Music Partnership with MTV? I'm presuming you've watched the video, if not check this , here's an excerpt:

Bill Gates: "With music, having MTV as a partner is a great thing. We think they can get the word out, do some neat things. We're also doing a lot in Messenger to make it so you can share playlists, so you can listen to different things. The next version of Messenger has music as one of the big breakthrough scenarios."

Yeah Right! Except partnering with MTV for music expertise is laughable, stupid and very very lame. You can't FIND music on MTV anymore. Check their schedule, Next, followed by the Real World, followed by My Own, followed by another episode of Next, Punk'd, and the list goes on. These are all reality-based television shows. Where's the F@!?ING music? Teaming up with MTV for music is like teaming up with McDonalds for tacos. Sure if this were 1984, partnering with MTV would be totally sweet. But in 2006 it's just sad. Once again, Bill is behind the curve. Apple is flying high with iTunes, so now Microsoft has to do yet another "me too" by making their own music store (apparently MSN Music didn't work out?)... except they team up with a has-been and give it a lamer name like "URGE" When is Microsoft going to stop being the bloated whore of the tech industry so they can be lean, hungry, and bleeding edge? When is Bill Gates going to understand that these sloppy "partnerships" are irrelevant when we're talking about a ship that's already sailed. I'm tired of Bill being late to the dock, then renting a little rowboat thinking that he'll be able to catch up... all the while screaming to the media about how Microsoft is doing all this cool shit that, in reality, is only cool to him. Bill I think you should stick to fighting Ballmer (10 MB; 5:41 min, you really should watch this). Man McTacos would be sweet.

Somebody give Google Money

Much to Jameed's dismay, it looks like Google is heading towards an everything-casual-PC-users-need' on their desktop pack. Scott already made excellent comments on the bundle so I won't repeat his comments other than to say Acrobat is not 'that' evil (unlikeReal Player), and bundling Norton Antivirus sounds quite fishy, a counter-WindowsOneCare campaign perhaps? So it appears Google is attempting to get the proles hooked on their easy install software - it looks like it will auto-update eventually providing a maintenance free PC. It already notifies of new versions available for download - nice! Now fast forward to eighteen months from now: 80% of regular internet users have the Google Pack installed, and by then it has good office capabilities (certainly possible if Google throws 300 cheap Indian engineers at Open Office).

Today several apps in Google Pack already exist in Linux. When Google Pack is a comprehensive desktop suite and identical software exists in Linux what is stopping a free Google OS based on Linux? Imagine a Net PC like Larry Ellison tried to offer in the nineties; it will be cheap, secure (because of intense peer review) and do everything 90% of internet users require. Would you like another prediction? In 2006 Google will make in-roads into their own DRM solution(s) - they need this before big-studios allow content on Google's OS.

On a side note; it seems Google are in a desperate need for cash, check out their Macworld booth.

Macbook Pro running Windows... hmmm

This just in. The new Macbooks have been confirmed to run Intel's EFI Bios replacement. EFI can apparently emulate a BIOS using a compatibility layer; presumably this is how the Macbooks will be able to boot (blah) Windows. Read More More on Intel EFI

Macworld 2006 Predictions

According to Kevin Rose, the following will make their appearance on the “red carpet” at Macwrold 2006: 1. 15″ intel Macbook - order tomorrow, ships Feb (thinner, dual core) 2. iPod FM receiver 3. iWork/Life ‘06 4. New remote of some type 5. Photocasting (iPhoto) 6. OS X.4.4 w/new widgets Countdown… Argh the anticipation is gut wrenching.

Podcast: The Kungfu Sheep

Happy Eid Everyone كل عام وأنتم بخير Download the file & stick it in your ear. Yazan Malakha & The Kung fu Sheep Sheep sound effects stolen off Jameed's Post