May 2009
Does this sound strangely familiar?
by Volker Weber
F355 Deux Chevaux
by Volker Weber
Schade
by Volker Weber
Das war dann wohl die letzte Mail aus Dortmund:
Sehr geehrte Blogger und Bloggerinnen,
vergangene Woche habe ich Ihnen per Email Fragen zu Ihrem Weblog zukommen lassen und um eine Antwort innerhalb einer Woche gebeten. Da ich unerwartet viel und schnell Rücklauf zu meinen Fragen bekomme, ist es mir formal und methodisch nicht möglich, noch mehr Antworten als die bereits erhaltenen zu verarbeiten und auszuwerten. Aus diesem Grund muss ich die Befragung bei all jenen, die nicht innerhalb der vorgegebenen Frist reagiert haben, abbrechen.
Formal und methodisch, soso. Irgendwie würde ich doch jetzt gerne mal die wissenschaftliche Herleitung lesen. :-)
Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009
by Volker Weber
Toccata
by Volker Weber
Google Mail supports IMAP IDLE
by Volker Weber
Maybe this is old news to you. I just wasn't sure whether Google Mail supports IMAP IDLE, so I asked the server:
openssl s_client -crlf -quiet -connect imap.gmail.com:993
to which it replied:
depth=1 /C=US/O=Google Inc/CN=Google Internet Authority
verify error:num=20:unable to get local issuer certificate
verify return:0
* OK Gimap ready for requests from xx.xxx.xxx.xx l19if11972848fgb.2
Then I asked:
C01 CAPABILITY
C01 is arbitrary, you can also say a001 or whatever you like. In any case, the server said:
* CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 UNSELECT IDLE NAMESPACE QUOTA XLIST CHILDREN XYZZY
C01 OK Thats all she wrote! l19if11972848fgb.2
IDLE. That means you get instant delivery of your Google Mail, if you have an email client capable of IMAP IDLE, like Mail.app on the Mac for instance:
Mixed Tape 26 is out
by Volker Weber
Tracklist:
01 What I Need - Seeker
02 Take A Hike - Thunder Power
03 Single Ride - BOREA
04 Way Outta Line - Tiptoe Around The Jungle
05 Philly Run - B-Ju
06 Velowitch's Trick (DJ3000 Motech Remix) - antennasia
07 People - Zemmy
08 Transformation - fran
09 The Shore - Simdiese6
10 Bit Waltzing - GÇlido
[Thanks, Alper]
Netgear EVA9150 Digital Entertainer Elite
by Volker Weber
A very good media streamer with comprehensive format support, but the price takes the shine off a little
Excellent review. Touches all the important points.
A Microsoft workaround
by Volker Weber
If you move your mouse pointer continuously while the data is being returned to Microsoft Excel, the query may not fail. Do not stop moving the mouse until all the data has been returned to Microsoft Excel.
NOTE: Depending on your query, it may take several minutes to return the results of your query to the worksheet.
[Thanks, Nick]
Löschen statt Sperren
by Volker Weber
Im Streit um geeignete Maßnahmen gegen im Internet dokumentierten Kindesmissbrauch ("Kinderpornographie") wird von Befürwortern bloßer Sperren angeführt, dass es oftmals nicht oder nur mit erheblichem Aufwand möglich sei, die Inhalte zu entfernen oder der Urheber habhaft zu werden.
Jetzt machte Alvar Freude vom Arbeitskreis gegen Internet-Sperren und Zensur (AK Zensur) die Probe aufs Exempel, analysierte mit automatischen Verfahren die diversen europäischen Sperrlisten und schrieb die Provider an, auf deren Servern sich laut der Listen kinderpornographisches Material befinden soll. Mit beeindruckender Resonanz: Innerhalb der ersten 12 Stunden nach Aussenden der Mails wurden bereits 60 Webauftritte gelöscht.
Sehr schön.
Ich halte die Begründung von Zensurmaßnahmen für scheinheilig. Hier wird ein Thema missbraucht, das konsensfähig ist. Niemand wird ernsthaft Kinderpornographie verteidigen. Sind die Maßnahmen erst einmal eingeführt, kann man sich dann den Bereichen widmen, bei denen Gut und Böse weniger deutlich getrennt sind.
In Personen ausgedrückt: von der Leyen wird vorgeschickt, weil Schäuble das nicht durchkriegen würde.
Meme Scenery - can you name them?
by Volker Weber
So I had this silly idea to isolate the backgrounds from famous Internet memes, removing all the subjects from every photo or video. I'm pretty happy with the results.
I can name surprisingly few of them.
Rocky is a dog
by Volker Weber
Found a nice application for the Android phone. It takes the pictures from your Facebook friends and applies them to the address book. Now you don't have to hunt down pictures of your friends for your address book. And since it syncs them up to Google contacts, they appear everywhere.
So why is Rocky a dog? Because he chose a picture of his dog for his profile:
Nokia is losing its mojo
by Volker Weber
Without much fanfare Nokia today made the OVI store available. Maybe they thought nobody would notice, but the world did. And I am lost for words, because I cannot find anything nice to say about it.
Here is what I tried. I went to the website, logged in, selected my current phone, and browsed the catalog. There isn't really much there. A far cry from even the Android market, let alone the iTunes store. What would you expect to find at the top of the list? Clients for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc etc. Nothingham.
This morning, the store listed the awful ringtone from the product placement in the Star Trek movie as the most favorite free item. Well, what can you do wrong? There is no preview/prelisten, so I selected to install instead. The store sends an SMS to the phone with a download link. The link takes you back to the website, where you have to login again. On the phone, no less. Then you can download the mp3 file. So it took me about 5 minutes for a simple ringtone install. Yeah, that is going to kick Apple's ass, right. Well, I did send the same link to the Android phone and the store said the Android phone would not be compatible with the store. Not compatible to view a website, or play an mp3? Puleeze.
While I was fooling around with the OVI store, I also played around with the E75. Good news: Symbian is getting better. Bad news: it's falling behind, rapidly. Example: the new operating system brings back access point groups in the form of "destinations". You can tell it to use several access points in order of priority. In theory you could assign your wifi access points higher priority than your carrier's access points. In practice that does not help you since all the applications on the phone force you to pick an access point and not a destination. If that is your home wifi, you will lose connectivity as soon as you leave the house. Same old, same old. Android has nailed it, iPhone has nailed it, only Symbian still struggles with it.
It's not all bad. The setup assistant does a great job configuring mobile access points, and needed nothing more than my Google mail address and my password to make mail work. But it took me the better part of an hour to also sync my contacts and my calendar. And I am not exactly clueless about those settings.
My verdict is: Nokia is improving. But not fast enough to avoid being steamrollered by a much faster competition. After five hours I put the SIM back into the Android and keep testing the E75 as a device that does not leave the confines of my private network. Which is sad, because the hardware is really nice.
Stop autorotation on BlackBerry Storm
by Volker Weber
I would suggest that RIM makes this a hardware switch. Until they do you can fix the Storm with StopTilt or Storm Rotation Wizard.
Two fantastic new albums in the mail today
by Volker Weber
Atzaró Ibiza - Soundscapes Vol. 2 is compiled and mixed by OHM-G. Vol. 1 was one of my favorites and I expect Vol. 2 to follow up in the same fashion.
Klassik Lounge Summer is compiled and mixed by the wonderful DJ Jondal. For those who already own the other Klassik Lounge Werk CDs, you have to be careful. As great as the The Summer compilation is, it contains many tracks published before in this series. Consider it a "best of" Klassik Lounge 1-7, with only 5 new unreleased tracks.
What's wrong on this screen?
by Volker Weber
What's Iggy Pop to do without a punk rock guitar player?
by Volker Weber
Sick of "listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music" he starts making some real music.
New in Android 1.5
by Volker Weber
There are quite a few things new in Android 1.5 a.k.a. "Cupcake". This includes two features that Paul cannot find on his device:
One is Latitude, which lets you post your current location to selected friends. This has been available in Google Maps for many mobile phones, but not yet with embedded software like Android or iPhone. I guess this will be coming with 3.0 of the iPhone software.
The other feature is Voice Search which has already been available on the iPhone in the Google Mobile App.
Google Sync Beta - Now for S60
by Volker Weber
Well, for those of you who have been asking about Google Sync for mobile on your Nokia S60 smartphone, we're happy to announce that you can now synchronize your Google Contacts and Calendars with your mobile device.
Tori Amos' latest album on last.fm
by Volker Weber
last.fm has the whole of Tori Amos' new album available for online listening:
http://www.last.fm/music/Tori+Amos/Abnormally+Attracted+to+Sin
[via Simon]
Zehn Tage mit dem HTC Magic
by Volker Weber
Am Anfang mochte ich das HTC Magic nicht. Zu weiß, zu glatt, keine Tastatur. Was mich am meisten störte, kannte ich schon vom BlackBerry Storm: Der Lagesensor, der die Bildschirmanzeige immer so stellt, dass sie nach oben zeigt. Dort, wo in der echten Welt oben ist, soll auch auf dem Display oben sein. Das habe ich jetzt abgestellt. Jetzt kann ich auch wieder auf der Seite liegend was lesen, ohne dass sich das Bild wegdreht.
Was vielleicht wichtiger ist: ich mag Android. Moderner als Symbian, mit Programmen, die auch im Hintergrund arbeiten, mit toller Integration in Goggle Mail und Kalender, und mit einer gar nicht mal so schlechten Softwareauswahl.
Gegenüber dem G1 fehlt dem Magic eine Hardwaretastatur. Dafür ist es leichter, liegt besser in der Hand, und ist viel harmonischer gestaltet. Die Batterielaufzeit ist etwas besser als beim G1, aber immer noch schlechter als bei allen anderen Handys. Vielleicht liegt das auch daran, dass ich die Android-Geräte viel intensiver nutze als die anderen. Man sollte ein kurzes USB-Kabel einstecken haben und das auch häufiger mal einstöpseln.
Was definitiv fehlt, ist ein gescheiter Mediaplayer mit iTunes-Anbindung und ein Kopfhörerausgang. Ich finde das nicht so dramatisch, weil ich auch BlackBerry und iPhone nicht zum Musikhören benutze. Wenn ich einen Kopfhörer mitnehme, dann auch den winzigen iPod nano. Der YouTube-Player jedenfalls funktioniert bei mir besser als der des iPhones.
Das Magic liegt gut und sicher in der Hand, besser als iPhone und BlackBerry Bold. Gegenüber dem iPhone vermisse ich Multitouch, gegenüber BlackBerry, dem G1 und den Nokias die Tastatur. Wer mit diesen Einschränkungen leben kann, dem wird das Magic gefallen. Ich will die Tastatur, deshalb gewinnt bei mir das G1 und das Magic geht diese Woche zurück zu Vodafone.
In der aktuellen c't ist ein lesenswerter Testbericht. Leider ist den Kollegen was durchgerutscht. Selbstverständlich kann man in Android mehrere Nachrichten gemeinsam bearbeiten. Die Markierunsspalte ganz links findet aber wahrscheinlich nur ein Notes-Geschädigter. :-)
Lage. Lage. Lage.
by Volker Weber
Das sind die drei wichtigsten Kriterien, nach denen man Immobilien kauft. Aber es gibt auch eine ganze Reihe von Diensten, die erst dann Sinn machen, wenn man sie "um einen herum" benutzt. Location based services auf denglisch.
Qype ist so ein Dienst. Was interessieren mich Rezensionen von Restaurants in fremden Städten? Da bin ich nicht. Was interessieren mich Rezensionen in meiner Heimatstadt? Da kenne ich mich aus. Aber wenn ich mich in der Pampa befinde, weit weg von zu Hause, dann interessiert mich das brennend. Qype finde ich doof egal. Qype Radar dagegen genial.
Gibt's mindestens fürs iPhone und für Android. Und hier kann man das passende Gerät gewinnen.
My Name is E: Poken for grown-ups
by Volker Weber
Exchanging contact information should be really easy. As easy as exchanging a business card. That’s why we’ve come up with a fantastic little device that will allow you to exchange contact information through a single touch-based gesture. Connector will be released at major conferences all around the globe.
But you don’t need a Connector to use E. E works on any phone with an internet connection. That way, you can exchange cards between iPhones, Blackberries, Android phones, Windows Mobile phones, Nokias, Motorolas, Palm phones, and so on. And while we have native applications, you don’t have to download any software to use E.
Belkin gear
by Volker Weber
Today, Belkin sent me another bag of goodies to try out. And I have become quite fond of them. I used to know them for their iPod accessories like the Rockstar pictured above, but they actually have some interesting other gear, which does not have the "dork chic". A 7-port USB-hub does not have to be ugly or bulky:
I also have this hub sitting on my table to quickly dock memory keys and cameras. The Universal Media Reader comes with a short USB cable that does not crawl all over the table. Unfortunately the Travel Adapter does not work with Magsafe-equipped Macbooks. It would be cool to charge both the notebook and USB accessories from the same device. What I do use however is the Micro USB car adapter and several cables. I love the Laptop Hideaway and this line of bags which come in different sizes.
I have only been disappointed twice because I could not get the Mini Bluetooth Adapter to work with the Samsung NC10 without the awful protocol stack and the Network USB Hub to work with my Mac. It does work with Windows, but the drivers for the Mac broke with Mac OS X 10.5.6.
Gone for a day
by Volker Weber
I guess we will be hearing a lot less about other outages for the time being.
Doppelfehler
by Volker Weber
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
in den letzten Tagen habe ich Ihnen eine Anfrage zukommen lassen, an einem E-Interview im Rahmen meiner Diplomarbeit teilzunehmen. Da ich von Ihnen keine Absage erhalten habe, gehe ich zunächst davon aus, dass Sie an einem Interview interessiert sind.
Schon wieder was, was man in Dortmund nicht lernt. Und diesen Fragebogen könnte man auch noch mal gegenlesen. Seufz.
Good developer, bad artist?
by Volker Weber
I often see good programs, but with a design that sucks. Designing icons and logos require a very different skillset. Why not outsource it? Mariano has done so with the icon for NewsRob.
Here is how it works >
Google Mail finally translates those Russian spam messages
by Volker Weber
I was always wondering what they were all about.
Android notification area
by Volker Weber
Android has a few advantages over iPhone. First, you can run widgets on the canvas and not only place icons. Second, those apps can run in the background. And third, you get a notification area at the top which alerts you of things happening in the background. And wherever you are, you can pull down that notification area:
Thanks to Mariano for teaching me how to make screenshots, and for his excellent NewsRob of course. ;-)
An inconvenient truth about your data
by Volker Weber
Your hard disk will die one day. And it is going to take your data with it. Your music, your photos, your mail, your contacts. All of it.
What you need is a backup. You can store mail on your ISP's server and your computer if you finally get around to replace POP3 with IMAP. You can sync your contacts with one of the many online services. Why don't you just go ahead and take a little time to burn those precious photos to a DVD? Like, right now.
If you have a Mac, you can simply use Time Machine:
To start using Time Machine, all you have to do is connect an external drive (sold separately) to your Mac. You’re asked if you want it to be your backup drive, and if you say yes, Time Machine takes care of everything else. Automatically. In the background. You’ll never have to worry about backing up again.
Get yourself an external hard drive and hook it up to your Mac. If you don't have 10.5 yet, you need no further reason than Time Machine. There is nothing to set up, no backup jobs, no full/incremental backup strategies. It does it all for you.
And then one day, when your hard disk dies, and you reinstall Mac OS X to your new disk or your new computer, the installer will ask you for your Time Machine drive. That's when you get all your data back.
Palm Pre to arrive June 6 for $200
by Volker Weber
On Tuesday, Sprint and Palm officially announced what we have all been waiting to hear: an official release date and pricing for the Palm Pre. The Pre will be available nationwide on June 6 for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and with a two-year contract on Sprint's Everything Data plan or Business Essentials with Messaging and Data plan. In addition to Sprint stores, the Pre will be sold at Best Buy, Radio Shack, and select Walmart stores as well as online.
That's an EVDO device which does not work with GSM/UMTS networks. Palm PR does not say anything about other markets. The official stance is "in the second half". I would be surprised if it takes until the end of the year.
TED: Ray Anderson on the business logic of sustainability
by Volker Weber
Denn Du bist Terrorist
by Volker Weber
Same video with english subtitles. Thanks, Alexander.
Fun with Wolfram Alpha
by Volker Weber
A phone is not just a phone anymore
by Volker Weber
A mobile phone lets you make phone calls. We take that for granted. Visit the US, and it is not so obvious. But here, it just works. Or at least it should. I am having some difficulties with phone calls on the G1 and I am still trying to find out what's wrong. The call isn't dropped, but the other person "disappears".
Funny thing is, I don't care that much. The mobile phone is less of a phone to me, but more of a mobile computer. Email, Twitter, News. Some weather and stocks. Once in a while a photo. That's what I use it for. And in this respect there are three winners: Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone. And two losers: Symbian (Nokia) and Windows Mobile. Both platforms feel "old".
Update on Android apps; I am using Mail, Twidroid, Newsrob, Browser, AccuWeather, Evernote Mobile and a clock and battery widget on my main screen. On the left canvas I have the Google widget, Contacts and Gallery, Orienteer, Maps, Sky Map and Wikitude. The right canvas has Finance, Quickpedia, Settings, Market, ShopsSavvy, Barcode Scanner, Calculator and Shazam.
Btw, I think we can stop using the moniker "smartphone". Almost all but the cheapest phones are smart nowadays.
The Clock Clock
by Volker Weber
Paul Potts sings in a shopping center in Oberhausen
by Volker Weber
Knapp daneben
by Volker Weber
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
ich studiere Journalistik an der Technischen Universität Dortmund und schreibe derzeit meine Diplomarbeit. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit möchte ich verschiedene Blogger zu ihren Praktiken des Bloggens, ihren Einstellungen und ihrer Motivation befragen.
Ich kontaktiere Sie, weil Ihr Weblog für meine Untersuchung interessant ist. Gerne würde ich mit Ihnen im Lauf der kommenden Wochen dazu ein "E-Interview" führen
Eins lernt man in Dortmund offensichtlich nicht: Es ist viel einfacher, ein Interview zu bekommen, wenn man den Interview-Partner mit Namen anspricht.
I think I need a new bike
by Volker Weber
Last Day Dream
by Volker Weber
Perfect media player on Android
by Volker Weber
Evernote
by Volker Weber
Evernote is one of the tools I use daily but have not told you about. Which I should have. Better do it now.
What is Evernote? It's a tool that lets you capture information and later find it. It has clients for Windows, Mac, iPhone, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, it even runs directly off a Sandisk U3. And it syncs your data between all those devices. On top of that you can access the information from any web browser.
Take a picture with your mobile, drop it into Evernote, and then find it at home on your Mac. Make an audio recording, bookmark or save a website, jot down some notes. They all get passed around.
Today I found out that Evernote even has a web client customized for Android. Your information, everywhere. Highly recommended.
Free Coldplay Live Album
by Volker Weber
Any email address will do.
G1 or Magic?
by Volker Weber
You know you want an Android phone, but you don't know which one? G1 or HTC Magic? For me this is easier to decide than I thought it would be.
Both have their advantages: The G1 has a slide out keyboard, or rather a slide out screen which reveals the keyboard. The Magic has a slightly larger battery (1340 mAh vs 1150), is lighter and smaller, and looks more sophisticated.
Both phones charge over USB. Period. They come with a 1A charger, while all my BlackBerry chargers only deliver 0.5A. USB 2.0 vs. 1.1 so to speak. So even if you do need a recharge once in a while, you will have lots of opportunities to do so.
And they share disadvantages: No headphone jack. Neither 2.5 nor 3.5 mm. They only work with the included crappy headphones that plug into the USB port. You can't even charge the phone and listen to music at the same time. Does it matter? They don't even have a decent media player.
And: Bad, bad battery life. Much worse than an iPhone. No wonder there are tons of little utilities that switch off power hungry components at the tip of a button.
And still: The G1 is great fun. There is more software than I thought there would be. And I like the keyboard. I even like the design, which I did not expect.
The Magic has an almost Apple-like design. It has the much better trackball. But without the keyboard, it's going back to Vodafone in two weeks. The G1 wins an editor refuses to give it back award.
But there, just beyond the horizon, there is a Samsung Android phone waiting. Chances are, one will find its way to vowe's magic flying circus.
Bored this weeked? Fix your Domino server.
by Volker Weber
Security certificates on Java applets in Domino, Sametime and Quickr will expire next Monday, depending on which version of Domino you are running and which applets you are using. If you want to avoid this issue, read this document and act on it. Not much work, but saves a lot of trouble.
Here is a recording of the conference call regarding this issue.
Noch so ein halbleeres Glas
by Volker Weber
Im Internet gibt es viele Proteste gegen die geplanten Kinderpornosperren. Politiker haben für die Kritik nur Verachtung übrig. So verprellen sie ihre künftigen Wähler
Target locked
by Volker Weber
ASW = Attention Seeking Whore
Three new phones in one day
by Volker Weber
I have a little bit more on my plate than usual. There is the new Nokia E75 to test as well as two Android phones: the G1 and the HTC Magic. E75 configuration was very smooth, better than ever on a Symbian device, including Wifi and email. But the Androids are sucking up all my curiosity. Both have touch screen, the G1 has a keyboard, the Magic has not. The E75 has a keyboard but lacks the touchscreen.
Will update tomorrow.
30,000 new Google Apps business users at Valeo
by Volker Weber
Today we're thrilled to share news about another exciting partnership: Valeo is deploying Google Apps to the company's entire office-based workforce.
GSX has a new vice president
by Volker Weber
Congratulations, Eileen, dominatrix of many an ILUG conference.
What's new in Lotus land?
by Volker Weber
Three news items so far today:
- OpenNTF relaunches with a very nice redesign.
- IBM has a limited time 25% discount on Notes licenses. This is only for new seats and those who let their maintenance lapse in the past. If you are current on your licenses and maintenance, there is nothing in it for you.
- IBM is releasing a beta of Notes/Domino 8.5.1 with Exchange ActiveSync support in Traveler. As far as I understand this, this beta is only available to a select few parties, the "design partners". The beta is not available to the public.
OpenNTF.org relaunches
by Volker Weber
The OpenNTF website gets a much needed breath of fresh air. Currently I can't get past an Error 500 (HTTP Web Server: Command Not Handled Exception), but the site URL suggests this is still work in progress:
http://openntf.org/Internal/home.nsf
By the time it's done it will probably have lost the "/Internal/home.nsf" part and gained a proper site icon.
Update: As pointed out in the comments you need to add a www to the front to make it work. And frankly, I am very surprised:
Can you find any of the projects that made OpenNTF so successful?
Fifty One
by Volker Weber
Awkward family photos
by Volker Weber
[Thanks, Chris]
Real Life Twitter
by Volker Weber
[via Peter]
ODF Spreadsheet Bickering: What It Means to an Enterprise
by Volker Weber
To summarize, this in-between time (between the OpenOffice.org de facto standard and the wait for the officially approved 1.2 standard) means there isn't one way to handle this problem. The vendors would like you to believe that there is (their way), but in reality there isn't. Ultimately, this will resolve itself over time. ODF 1.2 will be approved, and there will finally be an approved standard that everyone--IBM, Microsoft, Sun (Sun/Oracle)--can follow.
Until then, if an enterprise does want to use ODF, the best strategy is to stick with one productivity suite as a way to avoid these interoperability problems. That way, even if formula support is idiosyncratic, it at least will be consistent within the enterprise.
Well said.
Failbook
by Volker Weber
BlackBerry Enterprise Server Packages for Google Mobile applications
by Volker Weber
Today we're excited to announce the availability of new enterprise installation packages for Google Mobile App and Google Maps for mobile.
These enterprise installation packages allow BlackBerry administrators to deploy Google Mobile applications to corporate BlackBerry phones. Administrators have the option of using ALX packages to push applications to BlackBerry phones through BES. Alternatively, administrators can host JAD/COD packages on a private intranet so that employees can download applications from internal sites. BES administrators will need to configure their BlackBerry phones to allow applications from Google to be installed.
Kristen@Lotus, I hear you
by Volker Weber
If it isn't working yet, it's not because I did not receive your message.
Google launches push services on BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES)
by Volker Weber
Google Apps Connector for BES is a piece of software developed by Google that sits on the BES and pushes your Google services to your BlackBerry. The software allows users to access Gmail, Google Calendar and Contacts using the built-in BlackBerry applications they already know and love.
Did you notice? Push, not sync:
Although the calendar currently only supports 1-way syncing, 2-way syncing is on the way.
A message from Microsoft Steve
by Volker Weber
In January, in response to the global economic downturn, I announced our plan to adjust the company’s cost structure through spending reductions and job eliminations. Today, we are implementing the second phase of this plan.
This is difficult news to share. Because our success at Microsoft has always been the direct result of the talent, hard work, and commitment of our people, eliminating positions is hard.
Today’s action includes positions in the United States and in a number of countries around the world. In the U.S., affected employees will be notified directly by their managers today. In other countries, local leadership teams will provide more specific information about the impact to their organizations.
With this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010. We are moving quickly to reach this target in response to consistent feedback from our people and business groups that it’s important to make decisions and reduce uncertainty for employees as quickly as possible, and so that organizations can concentrate their efforts and resources on strategic objectives.
As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations.
For those of you directly affected by today’s announcement, I want to thank you for your contribution to Microsoft and assure you that we will continue to provide support as we did during the previous job eliminations.
And for everyone across the company, I want to reemphasize how much I appreciate the way you have pulled together to help the company respond to this difficult economic environment. There’s no doubt that these are very challenging times. But together, we are making the right choices to ensure that we will continue to deliver great products and position ourselves for strong future growth and profitability.
Thank you for your continued hard work, commitment, and focus.
Steve
IBM needs your help
by Volker Weber
Full size here. The link in the message is not going to work really well:
<a href=3D"youtube.com/collaboration4you">
But you heard about the videos before. Oh, and here is the free signature. Yup, IBM is still using GIF as the Notes default.
Electronista: BlackBerry trumps iPhone in US smartphone sales
by Volker Weber
BlackBerries nearly dominated iPhones in US smartphone sales for the start of 2009, the NPD Group said today in a new study. The market researchers note that the top-selling phone line from the quarter ended in March was the BlackBerry Curve 8300 series, which edged out the iPhone 3G at second place. Of the top 5 phones, 3 were BlackBerries and included the touchscreen Storm in third place and the non-flip Pearl in fourth. The lone Android phone in the US, T-Mobile's G1, occupied the fifth spot.
Remember: market shares worldwide are poised to be very different.
BlackBerry Enterprise Server Becomes First Mobile Platform to Achieve Common Criteria EAL4+ Certification
by Volker Weber
WATERLOO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - May 4, 2009) - Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced that BlackBerry(R) Enterprise Server 5.0 has been awarded Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (EAL4+) certification. Common Criteria is an international standard for evaluating security products. Widely respected for its extensive and comprehensive evaluation by an independent third party, EAL4+ accreditation examines the design, software development methodology, and security mechanisms of BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
Blackberry Enterprise Server 5 announced and released
by Volker Weber
WATERLOO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - May 4, 2009) - Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced the availability of BlackBerry(R) Enterprise Server 5.0 - the next generation of RIM's secure, push-based server software for business mobility.
BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 is available today for IBM(R) Lotus(R) Domino(R) and Microsoft(R) Exchange.
Can you spot Pink?
by Volker Weber
Danny MacAskill (Inspired Bicycles) - April 2009
by Volker Weber
[via Peter Glaser]
