Julian's Blogtech

To critics, cloud computing can't be trusted because you aren't in control of the data outside your network.

But if that's the case, then how secure are the data and collocation centers that corporations contract with to host their data?

"It does come down to vetting the practices of the provider and making sure they meet the standards you want for your business," Phil Hochmuth, a senior analyst at Yankee Group, said Monday, the eve of Cloud Computing Innovation Day in Santa Clara, Calif.

Companies looking to establish a social networking presence might want to start small by launching a Facebook page, a Wiki or a few executive blogs.

Bigger firms with enough resources, might even set up a committee to research and deploy something on a grander scale such as a full-fledged company-branded social network using tools available from a variety of vendors.

As expected, Microsoft launched on Monday a release candidate of Internet Explorer 8, the first update to the browser since last August.

The build, dubbed IE8 Release Candidate 1, runs on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008, but not on the two-week-old Windows 7 beta .

While Windows 7 's preview includes a version of IE8, it's actually a interim build, somewhere between the Beta 2 of five months ago and today's RC1, said James Pratt, a senior product manager on the IE development team. "It's a pre-RC of IE that we specifically tuned for the new features in Windows 7, such as jump lists and touch support," he said.

 

We continue to deliver fresh high-quality freebies to our readers, and we continue to pursue the diversity of subjects that we like to cover on Smashing Magazine. Since the beginning of the year, each icon set has been dedicated to a specific theme or topic that could be useful in your next project. Today, we are releasing two free high-quality icon sets.

ways hosted in Las Vegas, MIX is an annual conference for developers, designers, and enthusiasts who are interested in discussing Microsoft's latest web-oriented products and services. MIX09 will be the fourth chapter of MIX, held from March 18-20 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. Scott Guthrie, corporate VP of Microsoft's .NET Developer Division, will be making the two hour keynote speech on Wednesday at 9AM.

Save $200 when you register now! Join 9,000 of your peers to explore current and soon-to-be-released Microsoft technologies, including Azure Services Platform and the upcoming Visual Studio 2010.

Microsoft for the first time is contributing code to an Apache open-source project, continuing the company's softening of its attitude toward open-source software and the community that supports it.

In a blog post this week, Microsoft said it is contributing code to Project Stonehenge, which is aimed at building a set of sample applications for implementing a SOA (service-oriented architecture) based on approved W3C and OASIS standard protocols.

Microsoft delivers Version 1.0 of its Web Platform Installer (Web PI), a free download manager that enables developers to install the Microsoft Web Platform or at least part of it. Web PI simplifies the installation of Microsoft's developer technologies, from .NET Framework 3.5 to ASP.NET to Silverlight and more, for building Web applications.

Microsoft has delivered Version 1.0 of its Web Platform Installer, a free download manager that enables developers to install the Microsoft Web Platform or at least part of it.

Last week we presented 10 Web Design Trends For 2009, our review of the most promising developments and techniques in web design that may become big in 2009. In the first part we covered embossing letters ("letterpress"), rich user interfaces, PNG transparency, big typography, carousels and media blocks.

This post is the second part of our review. It presents design trends for 2009 in terms of layouts, visual approaches and design elements. Please notice that this post showcases trends and developments that were extensively covered in our previous articles (e.g. handwriting, retro and vintage etc.) and therefore weren't covered in this post (they are all linked in the overview, so feel free to explore these single posts as well). Did you miss any recent development in this overview? Let us know in the comments!

Looks like the spirit of bipartisan cooperation in D.C. has already left its mark on the PC.

Last night, we're told, Microsoft worked together with Novell-sponsored Mono Project and Moonlight team to enable Linux desktop users to view the inauguration events using the open source implementation of Silverlight.

Silverlight is Microsoft's browser plug-in and was selected by the presidential inauguration committee to broadcast today's inauguration events over the Internet. But it only supports Windows and Macintosh, and that caused some in the Linux community to cry foul.

The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple free tool that allows you to install all or part of Microsoft's entire Web Platform and keep each individual component up-to-date. Web PI downloads an XML-based manifest of available products and technologies, which is continually updated to ensure that each time the tool is run it will offer the most current components and the latest versions of each technology (it highlights newly available or prerelease software). You can also choose to install extensions for IIS 7.0 and ASP.NET, service packs, database drivers, and other relevant Web platform technologies.

Microsoft's Photosynth is an impressive tool for stitching together dozens of photos to allow a place or event to be viewed from multiple angles.

The only hard part is it really takes 75 photos or more to get the optimal experience. That's a lot of work for one photographer. But, with big events, one can also rely on crowdsourcing. Which is what CNN has done with the inaugural, asking viewers to send in their photos of Barack Obama's swearing in.

The resulting Photosynth is pretty cool. (It requires Silverlight for viewing.)

Last week, we presented 10 Useful Web Application Interface Techniques, the first part of our review of useful design trends in modern Web applications. Among other things, we highlighted embedded video blocks, specialized controls and context-sensitive navigation. We also encouraged designers to disable pressed buttons, use shadows around modal windows and link to the sign-up page from the log-in page.

Let's face it. Technology moves fast; academia doesn't. So how should educators teach web design and development-subjects that change constantly? How should educators prepare students for real-world expectations? How do educators stay up-to-date? And how do web professionals help educators to create graduates who fit in and actually know what they're doing?

The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States is now but a day away, and Microsoft has more than just a front seat, as in fact it has managed to put its technology at the heart of the event. In this regard, the company informed that the Presidential Inaugural Committee had chosen Silverlight to provide online video access to inauguration events.

"Microsoft is proud to be part of this event by helping to bring the inauguration activities online," Brad Smith, Microsoft general counsel, revealed. "Just as during the campaign itself, Internet technology is enabling people around the world to participate more directly in historic events in new and exciting ways."

Microsoft's unified communications and collaboration solutions will not represent an exception when it comes to the Redmond company stretching its traditional on-premise software products into the Cloud. David Scult, a general manager in Microsoft's Information Worker Division, indicated that the software giant was stepping up its game in order to keep up the pace with customer needs, especially in the context of Software as a Service, or Software plus Services, in the company's perspective. As a direct result, Microsoft's messaging and collaboration offerings will be impacted by the new direction under development.

The city is a fantastic source of beauty and inspiration, with all the glitz and glamour glistening beneath the city lights. But there is another side of the city altogether, one rife with its own kind of allure. Across the tracks, away from the dazzle of downtown, lies a darker imagination, this one looking to grunge-ridden, dilapidated architecture for inspiration. There is a beauty that pervades this kind of urban decay and captured wonderfully through a photographer's well-trained eye. These industrial city scenes are wonderfully dark and offer a glimpse of the weathered face beneath the city facade.

Software giant Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) announced on Thursday that web hosting provider ORCS Web (www.ORCSWeb.com) is currently being showcased on Microsoft's new Web Hosting Interview series, where it calls the company "one of the most experienced Microsoft platform hosting companies in business."

When I presented an executive briefing on the business implications of Silverlight to a large company in Houston recently, the response was lukewarm. The cool demos that showcased DeepZoom, Picture-In-Picture and HD quality video, and high-quality animations should have easily excited the group. When I polled the audience members about their limited interest, it became clear that while dazzling graphics were great, there was very little real-world guidance available for building enterprise-quality, data-centric, line-of-business (LOB) applications with Silverlight.

The economic downturn has been punishing to many IT vendors, but not software-as-a-service vendors. SaaS providers are seeing double-digit growth in their subscription revenue, according to a new study by Forrester Research Inc.

"I think SaaS has an element of being recession-proof," said Ray Wang, a Forrester analyst who follows this market. But he includes a number of caveats: Many companies are moving cautiously with small SaaS deployments, short contracts and even month-to-month agreements. "People are likely to be commitment-phobic," he said.