Some Facts About Orkut

Some Facts About Orkut

The Story A boy lost his girlfriend in a train accident, but the her name nowhere appeared in the dead list. This boy grew up and became IT technical architect in his late 20s, and got achievements.He hired developers from the whole globe and plan to make a software where he could search for his girlfriend through the web, and things went as he ever planned. He found her, after losing millions of dollars and 3 long years! It was time to shut down the search operation, when the CEO of Google had a word with him and took over this application. This Software made a whopping 1 billion dollars profit in its first year, which we today know as ORKUT .The boy?s name is ORKUT BUYUKKOTEN . Yes it?s named after him only. Today he is paid a hefty sum by Google for the things we do like scrapping. He is expected to be the richest person by 2009.ORKUT BUYUKKOTEN today has 13 assistants to monitor his scrapbook & 8 to monitor his friends-list. He gets around 20,000 friend-requests a day & about 85,000 scraps !!!
Some other Cool Facts about this guy:

He gets $12 from Google when every person registers to this website.
He also gets $10 when you add somebody as a friend.
He gets $8 when your friend?s friend adds you as a friend & gets $6 if anybody adds you as friend in the resulting chain.
He gets $5 when you scrap somebody & $4 when somebody scraps you.
He also gets $200 for each photograph you upload on Orkut.
He gets $2.5 when you add your friend in the crush-list or in the hot-list.
He gets $2 when you become somebody?s fan.
He gets $1.5 when somebody else becomes your fan.
He even gets $1 every time you logout of Orkut.
He gets $0.5 every time you just change your profile-photograph.
He also gets $0.5 every time you read your friend?s scrap-book & $0.5 every time you view your friend?s friend-list.

History of Internet

At a glance: Changing phases

- August 1991: Tim Berners-Lee releases web software.

- December 1991: First web server outside Europe goes online.

- November 1992: 26 servers now online.

- April 1993: Mosaic web browser from Windows released. World Wide Web (www) made available to all for free.

- May 1993: First online newspaper, the Tech published by students from MIT, launched.

- June 1993: HTML programming, used to create WebPages, released.

- October 1994: Bill Clinton puts www.whitehouse.gov on the web. Netscape browser released.

- February 1995: Radio HK becomes first dedicated online radio station.

- July 1995: Amazon.com launched.

- August 1995: Internet Explorer released.

- September 1995: Ebay.com launched.

- July 1996: Hotmail launched.

- December 1997: Term "blog" coined, meaning weblog.

- September 1998: Google opens first office in a garage in California.

- January 2000: dot-com boom reaches peak.

- August 2000: Nearly 20 million websites online.

- November 2001: Pope John Paul II sends first papal e-mail.

- April 2003: Apple's itunes music download service launches.

- July 2004: Tim Berners-Lee receives a knighthood.

- August 2006: There are now over 92,615,362 websites online

Monitoring Policy for SMS & Email..

In the past week some very disturbing developments have taken place, in regards to the new sms and email monitoring policy of the establishments. According to the sketchy details available until now, a monitoring cell has been established to keep a track of all the information flowing around, in an attempt to halt anti government campaign.

The logic behind this new episode is yet to understand. Practically, in the past all around the world we have seen governments taking these steps only to ensure “National Security”, but this step seems to be rather “regime security” oriented. A society or a government, what ever it is can not prevail without accountability. A country like Pakistan, where a dire security threat is looming, can be expected to put a restriction on hate propagating literature, but a step of this nature is beyond my imagination. The policy is censorship has never delivered, nor will it this time around. If you receive an email or an sms giving you a statistic of how much extra taxation is leveled on the price of 1 liter petrol, neither the receiver nor the sender can be termed a criminal. In fact, freedom of expression is a basic right of any individual, and there is no second opinion to this.

Regime security seems logical in Moammar Gadaffi’s Libya or Kim Jong II North Korea, but in a democratic setup this is a brutality, a torture and a complete injustice. Just take the case of Americans. During the peak of War on Terror and 9/11 saga, there own citizen came up with “Fahrenheit 9/11”to prove that 9/11 was an inside job, not some Iranian journalist who made it. I never heard President Bush or his team went after any campaign like this, and this is a reality that the greatest suspicion came to surface through the documentaries produced in the West.

To those responsible in taking an initiative like this, we have a simple suggestion that care is better than cure. Instead of silencing all the voices, its better to pay a heed to them. Every Pakistani cares, that’s why they want their voices not only to be heard, but also dealt with. Lets see if the establishment will review its decision, or sooner we will hear the breaking news that blogging has also been declared a crime!

Picasa Tip: How to Create an Account and Upload Pictures

 One of the many wonders of the world wide web is Picasa Web Album, and I think everyone should have an account.

It is both an online-tool and a FREE downloadable, client-side tool made by Google, allowing you to easily upload photos. I for one find it really easy to use, I think Google tools are built that way. One can quickly use those photos for other online websites like blogs and the like. I use it to store my personal private photo library too.

The free account allows one to have 1024MB of photo space. An upgraded full account are separated into 4 general plans:

1. 10GB for $20/year
2. 40GB for $75/year
3. 150GB for $250/year
4. 400GB for $500/year

For those who do not have a Picasa Web Album account yet, here are 5 easy steps to start with one of your own and begin your online photo library.

1. Create an account or sign into your Google account using your GMail username and password at http://picasaweb.google.com.

2. At the upper left corner you'd see My Photos, My Favorites, & My Public Gallery. You can click any of these links when you've got photos uploaded into your account.

3. To begin uploading your first sets of photos, click the uploadbutton on the upper-right side of the website.

4. You then must first choose to create a new album and/or to upload your photo into an existing album.

5. And the fifth step is to choose the actual photos and clickOK/Upload.

Courtesy: pcpandit.com

Prevent Identity Theft

Tips to protect yourself from ID thieves.

Fight Back -- 8 Simple Ways

Karen Lodrick's website, fightingbacknow.com, offers these tips to protect yourself from ID thieves: 

1. Opt out of unsolicited credit card offers by calling 888-567-8688 (supported by the consumer credit reporting industry). 

2. Get spyware protection for your computer, such as Ad-Aware (free at lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware). 

3. Don't return warranty cards for purchased items. Save your receipt -- that's all you need to make a claim. 

4. Have all your mail sent to a post office box rather than to your home address. 

5. Never open e-mail from people you don't know. 

6. Use different passwords for your online accounts. 

7. Mix numbers and letters, upper and lowercase, in passwords. 

8. Shred all documents, especially from credit card companies, before discarding. 

More Ways to Protect Yourself

Here are 10 additional tips from fightingbacknow.com that will help you protect your identity online and in mail:

1. 1. Monitor your credit report regularly. You can request one free report a year, and you can also sign up with the three major credit bureaus to be alerted of any unusual activity.
   
   
2. 2. Stop giving out your Social Security number. Only a few places have the authority to ask for your Social Security number—your employer, the Department of Motor Vehicles, welfare services, the IRS, and institutions that deal with your taxes, like your bank or a brokerage house.
   
   
3. 3. Make sure you’re getting all of your bills each month. If one goes missing, contact the company right away. Have a lot of bills? Keep a list of them so you don’t lose track. 
   
   
4. 4. Review your credit card statements diligently. 5. Make sure each purchase is yours and if not, notify the company immediately.
   
   
5. 5. Check your bank statement each month. This is time consuming, but worth it! Bank policy is that you only have one month to put in a claim of fraud if you want the bank to recover your money.
   
   
6. 6. Strip your computer before donating it. Make sure all of your information is removed from your personal computer before donating it by wiping the hard drive or taking it out and destroying them.
   
   
7. 7. Get a second (or third) e-mail-account.8. Establish a separate e-mail account and use it specifically and exclusively for online purchases. That should make your private accounts less vulnerable.
   
   
8. 8.. Consider a different browser. The most popular browser is Internet Explorer, which is pre-installed on most personal computers. Most viruses and spyware programs target this browser as a result, so try using alternative browsers such as Firefox or Opera, which can be downloaded free of charge.
   
   
9. 9. Just say no. Sign up for the Do Not Call list (donotcall.gov); stop pre-approved credit card and insurance offers from reaching you by mail or phone (optoutprescreen.com).
   
   
10. 10. Box junk mail. Use the Direct Marketing Association to help you stop receiving mailings (https://www.dmachoice.org/MPS/).

Rumor Detectives: True Story or Online Hoax?

A few years ago, a woman and her husband were coming home from a ski trip in British Columbia when they spotted a disabled car on the side of the road. It was raining and the driver looked distressed, so they stopped and helped him fix his flat tire. The man was extremely grateful but didn't have any cash to reward them, so he took down their personal information. A week later, the couple got a call from their bank saying their mortgage had been paid and $10,000 had been deposited into their account by an appreciative Bill Gates.

"Ah, the grateful millionaire," Barbara Mikkelson says with a satisfied grin. "It started with Henry Ford. Then it was Nat King Cole. Then Donald Trump. We even have a version Oscar Wilde wrote back in the 1890s."

With her bemused tone and a habit of peering over her spectacles, Mikkelson has the air of a night-shift detective who has seen it all-and in a way, she has. Barbara, 49, and her husband, David, 48, run Snopes.com, the Internet's preeminent resource for verifying and debunking rumors, ridiculous claims, and those e-mail chain letters your sister-in-law can't stop forwarding. Whether it's an urban legend like the Gates story, an overblown warning about the latest computer virus, or that bizarre photo circulating of "Hercules, the world's biggest dog," chances are Snopes.com has checked it out and rated it as "true," "false," or "undetermined."

What began in 1995 as a hobby for a pair of amateur folklorists has grown into one of the Internet's most trusted authorities—and a full-time profession for the Mikkelsons. Each month, 6.2 million people visit Snopes, according to Quantcast, which tracks Internet traffic. The New York Times recently put Snopes on its short list of essentials that every computer user must know about. President Barack Obama's campaign launched a copycat version last fall to battle rumors of its own (for the record, Michelle Obama didn't gorge on room-service caviar and lobster at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel). And even the word Snopes, a name David borrowed from a family in a William Faulkner novel, has gone viral—as in, "Why didn't you Snopes that junk before forwarding it to your entire e-mail list?" Richard Roeper, the movie critic who sidelines as an author of myth-busting books like Debunked!, says, "Snopes is like having your own army of fact-checkers sniffing out a million wacko leads."

An army of two, that is. Snopes's world headquarters is actually just Barbara and David sitting around their modest double-wide on a shady hillside outside Los Angeles. Their two home offices are stacked to the ceiling with their trusty research tools: dictionaries, almanacs, VHS tapes, Disneyana, encyclopedias, atlases, and hundreds of books like UFO's: A Scientific Debate and Organ Theft Legends. Oh, and there are cats: Buster, Sterling, Irene, Ashes, and Memphis. "David and I work at opposite ends of the house," Barbara says, flinging a cat's crinkle toy. "I once attempted to send him a note by sticking a Post-it on the side of one of the cats."

Cat couriers? Sounds like a case for Snopes. Strange rumors about animals are among the website's most popular cases. That widely circulated photograph of Hercules, a 282-pound mastiff with "paws the size of softballs," is one example.

"About a year ago, people started sending us photos from the Internet of a freakishly large dog walking alongside two people and a horse, and it made me go, 'Wait a minute,'" David says. A self-proclaimed computer nerd with a mop of brown hair, David was undoubtedly the kid whose notes everyone copied. "We investigated, and the picture turned out to be a digital manipulation-what we call fauxtography."

Another Snopesism is glurge, a "true story" so sugary sweet, it could make a baby unicorn cringe. One such tale making the rounds online is about Stevie, a young man with Down syndrome who receives donations from compassionate truckers at the restaurant where he works. (Snopes, which cites its sources in detailed footnotes at the bottom of each entry, uncovered the magazine where it was first published-as fiction.) Then there's the sad, cautionary poem reputedly penned in jail by a teenage meth addict shortly before her death by overdose. It is forwarded in an e-mail thousands of times every day. Again Snopes tracked down the original author: an Oklahoma mom with a seventh-grade daughter, neither of whom ever used methamphetamines.

"Most of what we deal with exists outside traditional media," David says, staring at an inbox with 21,144 unopened e-mails. Among the subject headings: "Video of one-winged airplane landing. For real?" and "Fisher-Price talking doll says 'Islam Is the Light!'" David glances at his muted TV set, where Law & Order is playing with closed-captioning. "These stories and half-truths are handy forms of expressing fears or concerns or ways of looking at life," he says. "But it's not easy to find out if these things are true or not, so people turn to us."

A passion for nosing around is what brought the Mikkelsons together, and it's still their prime motivation. The couple met in 1994 on an Internet newsgroup devoted to urban legends like the one about Walt Disney's body being cryogenically frozen after his death. Faster than you could say, "Mikey died of Pop Rocks," Barbara was flying from her hometown outside Ottawa to Los Angeles to meet David, then a computer programmer for an HMO. "Our first date was me taking Barbara to the library at UCLA to go through old magazines," David says, laughing. The couple now earn a "very healthy" income, David says, from advertising on the site.

Though the Mikkelsons are established figures on the Web, they still prefer old-fashioned research—scouring vintage catalogs, thumbing through four newspapers a day—over finding quick answers online. "I might use Google or Wikipedia as a starting point," David says. "But that's not research." For fun, the Mikkelsons go to places like the Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta and the Library of Congress.

Barbara, who is the more outgoing of the two, signs her name to her entries and tends to favor subjects like business, politics, and anything to do with horror or crime. David, the resident expert on Coca-Cola, the Beatles, Disney, and sports, occasionally tries to make up a rumor, like the one he attempted to spread that Mr. Ed was actually a zebra. "You'd be surprised how hard it is to get traction with one of these," he says. "The things that take off have to hit a nerve we're all thinking about."

The Mikkelsons' work is now more than just a labor of love. Some say Snopes is changing the nature of folklore. Jan Brunvand, professor emeritus of English at the University of Utah, is one of the world's leading experts on urban legends. He says Snopes and websites like it have helped eradicate myths that in many cases have endured for generations, whether it's alligators crawling in the sewers or the old chestnut about gang members killing drivers over flashing their headlights. "Because they have been publicized so much," Brunvand writes, "people no longer believe most of the classic urban legends."

Which doesn't mean Snopes's work is done. With cats by her side and underfoot, Barbara peers over her glasses as fresh queries land in her inbox. Was the St. Pauli girl on beer labels really a lady of the evening? Did the bottled water company actually name itself Evian because it's naive spelled backward? Did Neil Armstrong tell a dirty joke on the moon? Is it true that the elevator close-door button is completely useless?

Anatomy of an Urban Legend
How it starts, where it spreads, and how Snopes takes it down

1. The buzz begins
In early May 2008, Snopes begins getting e-mail alerts warning of criminals using funny-smelling business cards soaked in a drug called burundanga as a way to incapacitate victims. The forwarded message cites an incident that happened "last Wednesday" to "Jaime Rodriguez's neighbor … at a gas station in Katy."

"We noticed we were getting more and more inquiries on this from people searching our site," David says, "and since burundanga was something we had never written about, we decided to tackle it."

2. The big dig 
The Mikkelsons start investigating. With few hard details—Katy, Texas? Katy, Missouri?-Snopes goes to its favorite sources: medical journals, police blotters, newspaper archives, and contacts in law enforcement cultivated over the years. Sometimes, says Barbara, "you have to pick up the phone." Until the rumor can be confirmed or debunked, it will be listed as "undetermined" on Snopes. Says David, "We like people to know we're working on something even if we don't have an answer."

3. The story spreads 
After a few days, the burundanga rumor picks up momentum and becomes one of the most-searched-for items on Snopes, which receives close to a thousand inquiries a day about it. "The stories that rise most," says David, "are those that pose a threat to readers." Across the Web, people forward the e-mail as a public awareness effort that the Mikkelsons dub slacktivism-sending a warning without putting in any effort to see if it might be true. 

4. The verdict 
With inquiries surging, Barbara spends several days on the case and determines that burundanga is a South American plant extract containing alkaloids that, at high doses, can indeed cause delirium and unconsciousness. But there are red flags. Burundanga has no scent, and it must be swallowed or inhaled to produce the described effects. Moreover, there isn't a single police report or news mention of an incident like this. If burundanga crime rings were really a problem, "the news would be awash in stories about such incidents," Barbara says. Snopes lists the rumor as "false." 

5. The comeback 
After quieting down over the summer, the story resurfaces in October after police officers in Canada and England forward the e-mail to fellow officers to ask if it is real. Those e-mails then circulate with the officers' signature blocks attached, giving the tale new credibility. Adding to the confusion, a November version of such an e-mail concludes, "This has been fact-checked out on Snopes.com, and this is true." As David says, "People will do just about anything to believe a story they want to believe." 

6. The myth dispelled 
By early 2009, the burundanga rumor is sliding down the list of the Hot 25 rumors on Snopes. Inquiries dwindle to a couple hundred a day. "It's bubbling under," David says. "But these things can pop back at any time. Most rumors never die completely."

Heard This One?
Snopes sets the record straight on which high-circulation tales are myths and which are actually (sort of) true.

Money from Uncle Bill

Rumor: Internet users can receive cash rewards from Bill Gates by forwarding an e-mail message to test a Microsoft tracking system. 
Origin: A hoax circulating since 1997, the Gates story is still thriving in various forms. One claims, "For every person you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245." 
Snopes report: "Totally false. It's a made-up claim, probably started as a joke. But since it promises easy cash, people believe it."

Deadly Flyers

Rumor: Would-be carjackers are placing flyers on the back windows of cars as a way to lure drivers out of vehicles. 
Origin: On the Snopes radar since 2004, the alert is part of a tradition that fuels paranoia about danger around every corner. See also: ankle slashers at the mall. 
Snopes report: False. "Nothing rules out there having been one car theft carried out in the manner described, but we have yet to hear about it."

Wal-Mart Behemoth

Rumor: An e-mail provides eye-popping statistics for the retail chain, claiming Wal-Mart shoppers spend $36 million every hour, every day.
Origin: Unclear, but it began circulating online in late 2008. Among the many claims: Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world. 
Snopes report: Mostly true. Snopes discovered a few other shockers: that Wal-Mart customers, for example, spend an average of $42,754,109 every hour.

Missing Ashley Flores

Rumor: A 13-year-old Philadelphia girl named Ashley Flores has been missing for two weeks. 
Origin: The text of the e-mail—making the rounds since 2006—includes a photograph, a Yahoo e-mail address, and a sad plea from the missing girl's father, a "deli manager," who writes, "If anyone anywhere knows anything, please contact me." Snopes.com logs roughly 1,000 requests a day from users wondering whether the claim is true. 
Snopes report: Complete hoax. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has no report of a missing child named Ashley Flores.

Snopes also cites phrases ("If anyone anywhere knows anything," for instance) taken word for word from previous missing-child hoaxes such as reports on Kelsey Brooke Jones and Christopher John Mineo.

"You can't make this stuff up," Barbara says, and then quickly catches herself. "Well, I guess you could. But if you do, I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of it."

UK Police Go Online To Warn Kids Of Social Website Dangers

UK police launched a website to warn children as young as eight about the dangers of putting their personal details on social networking sites such as MySpace and Bebo.

The site — THINKUKNOW CYBER CAFÉ — has an online cafe where children can learn about the dangers of revealing too much about themselves online. It warns them not to give away their real name, full address and mobile phone number and to think twice before posting their pictures.

The child exploitation and online protection centre, a police agency set up to tackle child sex abuse, said it receives about 10 reports each month relating to children aged between eight and 11.

"We want children to use the Internet," said CEOP chief executive Jim Gamble," but we want them to do it in a way that safeguards their time in the virtual world." (Times Of India)

Buying Medicine Over the Internet

Proceed with caution when purchasing from online pharmacies.

Check the validity of the pharmacy Web site. Legitimate drug-dispensing Web sites are certified through the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy's (NABP) Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) program. To be VIPPS certified, pharmacies must comply with the licensing and inspection requirements of their state and each state to which they dispense pharmaceuticals. Additionally, pharmacies displaying the VIPPS seal comply with NABP criteria related to privacy, security, drug authenticity, quality assurance, and customer consultations. You can get a list of VIPPS-approved pharmacies by going to nabp.net or by calling 847-698-6227.

Beware of purchasing drugs that aren't normally available in the U.S. You may wind up with counterfeit medications that can make you sick, or "sugar pills" that will do nothing for your condition.

Do not order a prescription through any site that just has you fill out a questionnaire or form, rather than seeing or talking to a doctor or pharmacist.

Only do business with sites that provide direct access to a registered pharmacist. Use this pharmacist for the same kind of information you would get from a pharmacist in a retail storeThe Internet has been a boon for prescription medications and over-the-counter drugs and supplements. But since it's hard to know exactly whom or what you're dealing with in cyberspace, you need to take some special precautions.

The 10 Stupidest Tech Company Blunders

'This iPod thing will never catch on' -- and 9 more unbelievable (in hindsight) missed tech opportunities.

Some of the biggest high-tech deals never happened. Some of the most promising products and services never came to be. Why? Because the people and companies involved didn't realize what they were letting slip through their fingers or they simply couldn't foresee what would happen afterward.

Change just a few circumstances and there might not be an Apple or a Microsoft today. Yahoo might be the king of the search hill, with Google lagging behind. You might be reading this on a Xerox-built computer via a CompuServe account while listening to your favorite tunes on a RealPod.

People say hindsight is 20-20. If so, our vision is acute. Here are our picks for the biggest missed opportunities in the history of technology.

1. Yahoo loses Facebook

In 2006, Facebook was a two-year-old social network that most people thought of as a digital playground for Ivy League brats. In the world of social networks, MySpace's 100 million members totally swamped Facebook's 8 million. So when Yahoo offered to buy Mark Zuckerberg's baby for a cool $1 billion -- nearly twice what Rupert Murdoch had spent for MySpace in 2005 -- people said, "Take the money and run, Mark." In fact, the then-23-year-old and Yahoo shook hands on a deal in June 2006.

Then Yahoo posted some bad financials and its stock dropped 22 percent overnight. Yahoo's CEO at the time, Terry Semel, reacted by cutting the purchase offer to $800 million. Zuckerberg balked. Two months later Semel re-upped the offer to $1 billion, but by then it was too late.

Today, Facebook boasts some 250 million registered users and is worth roughly $5 billion to $10 billion, depending on who's counting. Three years and two CEOs later, Yahoo is still struggling to survive.

2. Real Networks punts on the iPod

People think Apple CEO Steve Jobs invented the iPod. He didn't, of course. Jobs merely said yes to engineer Tony Fadell after the folks at Real Networks rejected Fadell's idea for a new kind of music player in the fall of 2000. (Fadell's former employer Philips also turned him down.)

By then, MP3 players had been around for years, but Fadell's concept was slightly different: smaller, sleeker and focused on a content-delivery system that would give music lovers an easy way to fill up their "pods." (Jobs is famous for driving the design of the iPod.)

Today that content-delivery system is known as iTunes, and Apple controls some 80 percent of the digital music market. Fadell worked at, and eventually ran, Apple's iPod division until November 2008. Real Networks is still a player in the streaming-media world, but its revenues are a fraction of what Apple makes from iTunes alone. (Photo: Courtesy of Apple)

3. Sony and Toshiba agree to disagree over HD

Few format wars have been as costly to their participants as the fight over a new high-definition disc standard. In one corner stood Blu-ray, championed by Sony. In the other corner was HD DVD, led largely by Toshiba.

From 2002 onward, the two sides wrangled, each signing up allies to support its own competing, incompatible format. In 2008, Sony slipped the knife into Toshiba by paying one of its biggest backers, Warner Brothers Studios, a reported $400 million to drop HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray.

Interestingly, the same parties had battled in the mid-1990s over a new high-resolution format for movies. Back then, they settled their differences, combining the best of both specs into something called Digital Versatile Disc, better known as DVD.

The missed opportunity to come out with a single HD format sacrificed years' worth of sales for every company involved. Had the two sides joined forces in 2002, high-def discs would be the dominant delivery medium for movies and shows now. Instead, today DVDs still outsell Blu-ray titles by 10 to one, and the future belongs to streaming media and video on demand.

4. Digital Research: The other Microsoft

This one is a classic. In 1980, when IBM was looking for somebody to build a disc operating software for its brand-new IBM PC, Microsoft was not its first choice. In fact, none other than Bill Gates suggested that Big Blue approach Gary Kildall of Digital Research, author of the CP/M operating system.

The legend is that Kildall blew IBM off to go fly his plane. The real story is that Kildall was flying to deliver a product to another customer, leaving his wife to negotiate with IBM. Dorothy Kildall didn't like parts of the deal IBM was proposing and sent the executives packing.

Big Blue went back to Gates, who with his partner Paul Allen, whipped out MS-DOS, based on Tim Paterson's QDOS (the Quick and Dirty Operating System), which was itself based on CP/M. IBM ended up offering both Microsoft's DOS (for $60) and a version of CP/M ($240) to buyers of the original IBM PC. The cheaper product won.

Before DOS, Microsoft's biggest products were versions of the BASIC programming tool. After DOS, well … you know the rest. Would Microsoft have grown into the monolith it is today without the IBM contract? We'll never know.

5. Xerox goes in an Alto direction

Here's another classic tale. More than a decade before the Macintosh and Windows PCs, before even the MITS Altair, there was the Alto, the world's first computer with a window-based graphical user interface. Invented at Xerox PARC, the Alto had a mouse, Ethernet networking and a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) text processor.

But in 1973, the personal-computer market didn't exist, so Xerox didn't really know what to do with the Alto. The company manufactured a few thousand units and distributed them to universities. As legend has it, in 1979 Steve Jobs visited Xerox PARC, saw the Alto and incorporated many of the Alto's features into Apple's Lisa and Mac computers. Shortly thereafter, Xerox finally realized its mistake and began marketing the Xerox Star, a graphical workstation based on technology developed for the Alto. But it was too little, too late.

6. Recording industry plays the same old tune

Perhaps no other industry has missed more tech opportunities than the music business.

In 1999, Shawn Fanning's Napster made it incredibly easy for people to share music online. The record companies reacted by suing Napster for contributing to copyright infringement. Then-Napster CEO Hank Barry called for the music industry to adopt a radio-style licensing agreement that paid royalties to artists for music distributed via the Net. His calls fell on deaf ears.

Napster fans quickly moved on to other peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as Gnutella and Grokster, and music "pirates" became the Recording Industry Association of America's public enemy No. 1.

In 2000 MP3.com launched a service that allowed members to upload songs from their own private CD collection and stream them to any PC. The recording industry sued MP3.com for copyright infringement and eventually won. MP3.com was sold and changed business models.

Add to all that the RIAA's suits against Grokster, Morpheus, Kazaa and some 30,000-odd music "pirates." Talk about your broken records.

Today, of course, music-subscription businesses and streaming services such as Pandora dominate digital music. Had the record companies partnered with Napster, MP3.com or any of the other file-sharing networks instead of suing them, they might control digital music sales today -- without nearly as many problems with piracy.

7. CompuServe blows its chance to dominate the Net

Look at today's interactive, social-media-obsessed, user-content-driven Web and what do you see? A spiffier version of CompuServe circa 1994. But instead of dominating the online world, CompuServe got its butt kicked by AOL and that company's 50 billion "free" CDs.

In the early 1990s, the CompuServe Information Service had "an unbelievable set of advantages that most companies would kill for: a committed customer base, incredible data about those customers' usage patterns, a difficult-to-replicate storehouse of knowledge and little competition," says Kip Gregory, a management consultant and author of "Winning Clients in a Wired World." "What it lacked was probably … the will to invest in converting those advantages into a sustainable lead."

Then AOL came along, offering flat-rate "unlimited" pricing (versus CompuServe's hourly charges), a simpler interface and a massive, carpet-bombing CD marketing campaign. Organizations that had an early presence on CompuServe forums moved over to the Web, which CompuServe's forums were slow to support. In 1997, AOL acquired CompuServe and "CompuServe classic" was finally laid to rest last June.

CompuServe's failure wasn't due to a single missed opportunity so much as a collection of them, says Gregory. "I really believe [CompuServe is] an important example that reinforces a critical lesson -- never stand on your heels in business."

8. Newspapers fail to read the writing on the wall -- Craigslist

Newspapers are dying, and by nearly all accounts (certainly, all newspaper accounts), Craigslist's fingerprints can be found all over the crime scene. People have blamed the mostly free online ad service for cutting the legs out from under classified advertising, one of the newspaper industry's cash cows.

As recently as 2005, classified ads brought more than $17.3 billion into U.S. newspapers' coffers. Since then, the use of classified ad sites like Craigslist (as well as Amazon, eBay and Google) has more than doubled, according to the Pew Research Center, while classified ad revenues have been halved.

If a consortium of newspapers had bought out Craigslist back in 2005, when classified ad revenues were flying high, things could be quite different today. But first they would have had to persuade Craigslist creator Craig Newmark to sell.

In a January 2008 interview with InfoWorld, Newmark said that his company's role in the collapse of the newspaper industry has been greatly exaggerated -- mostly by newspapers. "I figure the biggest problems newspapers have these days have to do with fact-checking," he remarked.

9. The Google before Google

In the mid-1990s, the hottest search-engine technology wasn't the work of Yahoo, Alta Vista, Lycos or Hot Wired; it was the Open Text Web Index. Much like Google today, Open Text was lauded for its speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness; by 1995, Open Text Corp. claimed that it had indexed every word on the roughly 5 million documents that constituted the Web at that time. That year, Yahoo incorporated Open Text's search technology into its directory.

But two years after partnering with Yahoo, Open Text abandoned search and moved into enterprise content management. A year later, Google made its debut. The missed opportunity? Not realizing how big search was going to be.

"If anything made Open Text special, it was that they came closer to having Google-like technology than anyone else in their time," says Steve Parker, a communications consultant who helped publicize Yahoo's launch of Open Text's search technology. "With a three-year lead on Google, you have to consider whether Google would have been forced to burn cash at a much faster pace and if they might have run out of time to overtake the market leader. If things had gone differently, that might have been good enough to get [Open Text] to king of the hill."

10. Microsoft saves a rotting Apple

Ten years ago Apple was in serious trouble. Mac sales were being eroded by cheaper clones from Power Computing and Radius. The company was running low on cash, its stock was trading for around $5 a share and it was hunting for a new CEO to replace Gil Amelio.

Then Apple received a much-needed infusion of cash -- $150 million -- from a seemingly unlikely source: Microsoft, which also promised to continue developing its Mac Office suite. The deal was negotiated by then-Apple adviser Steve Jobs, whom the Macworld Expo faithful booed at the deal's announcement. Shortly afterward, Jobs took over as Apple's "interim" CEO. We all know what happened after that.

If Microsoft hadn't missed its opportunity to let Apple wither? We'd be struggling to play WinTunes on our WinPhones. The online music and video markets would be stagnant -- or worse, controlled by Hollywood. And we'd be longing desperately for better alternatives to Windows.

What is IPTV?

IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) delivers television programming to households via a broadband connection using Internet protocols. It requires a subscription and IPTV set-top box, and offers key advantages over existing TV cable and satellite technologies. IPTV is typically bundled with other services like Video on Demand (VOD), voice over IP (VOIP) or digital phone, and Web access, collectively referred to as Triple Play.

Because IPTV arrives over telephone lines, telephone companies are in a prime position to offer IPTV services initially, but it is expected that other carriers will offer the technology in the future. IPTV promises more efficient streaming than present technologies, and therefore theoretically reduced prices to operators and subscribers alike. However, it also adds many advantages that may play into market pricing.

One of the advantages of IPTV is the ability for digital video recorders (DVRs) to record multiple broadcasts at once. According to Alcatel, one leading provider, it will also be easier to find favorite programs by using "custom view guides." IPTV even allows for picture-in-picture viewing without the need for multiple tuners. You can watch one show, while using picture-in-picture to channel surf!

IPTV viewers will have full control over functionality such as rewind, fast-forward, pause, and so on. Using a cell phone or PDA, a subscriber might even utilize remote programming for IPTV. For example, if a dinner function runs longer than expected, you don't have to miss your favorite program. Just call home and remotely set the IPTV box to record it.

However, the real advantage of IPTV is that it uses Internet protocols to provide two-way communication for interactive television. One application might be in game shows in which the studio audience is asked to participate by helping a contestant choose between answers. IPTV opens the door to real-time participation from people watching at home. Another application would be the ability to turn on multiple angles of an event, such as a touchdown, and watch it from dual angles simultaneously using picture-in-picture viewing.

One can also receive Web service notifications while watching IPTV for things such as incoming email and instant messages. If you IPTV is packaged with digital phone, Caller ID might pop up on screen as your telephone rings.

IPTV is already growing in the international market, with providers in many countries including Japan, Hong Kong, Italy, France, Spain, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. In the United States SBC, reportedly purchased a software delivery system for IPTV services from Microsoft in 2004 for $400 million dollars. Alcatel is working with Microsoft to develop a "global solution" for IPTV services, and Verizon has also made a deal with Microsoft for IPTV software.

Find Inside: All Information about Spyware

Spyware is one of the most prevalent methods that identity thieves use to collect the information needed to steal your identity. It’s such a problem that some experts estimate that nearly 80 percent of personal computers are infected with spyware. It’s also a problem that shows few signs of slowing down.

What is Spyware?

Spyware is a pretty common term, as it relates to identity theft. But what exactly is it? The easy answer is any malicious software that collects your personal information. But that answer really is too easy.

A more accurate description of spyware is that it is a group of software applications designed to collect your personal information or change the configuration of your computer without your consent. These applications can be downloaded to your computer by way of an infected file, planted without your knowledge when you visit a web site, or installed along with another software application.

What Does It Do?

Once a piece of spyware has been installed on your computer, it does one of two things: it either sits quietly in the background collecting information like account numbers, usernames, and passwords or it changes the configuration of your computer to allow a hacker access to your machine.

In the first case, the spyware is often called a keylogger – an application that logs every keystroke that you make when you’re using your keyboard. Once downloaded to your computer, keyloggers create a file where all of your keystrokes are stored, then each time you connect to the Internet a copy of that file is sent to a server somewhere else on the Web. Criminals then download that file and extract any valuable information that it might contain.

For example, if there’s a keylogger installed on your computer and you pay your bills online, order products from a Website, and fill out a registration form while you’re online, all of that information will be collected by the keylogger. Then that information is sent to the storage facility where the criminal later grabs it and separates the important stuff – your usernames, account numbers, passwords, date-of-birth, and credit card numbers. That information is then sold to another criminal who uses it for a variety of different illegal activities, including identity theft.

The other use of spyware is to change the configuration of your computer. When criminals use spyware in this manner, the program is installed on your computer and then it changes the configuration of your computer to allow that criminal to gain access to your machine, even if you’re protected by a firewall or other security software. Essentially, it’s like opening a door to your hard drive.

The criminal can then hack into your computer and either access personal information that’s stored on the computer or lock you out of the computer and use it connected to a group of other hi-jacked computers – called a botnet – to conduct some other criminal activity online. Criminals may even use your computer to send spyware and other malicious software, out to others.

Recognizing Spyware

One of the most difficult aspects of controlling spyware is that sometimes it’s hard to spot. Some spyware distributors have become so adept at disguising their programs that you can be infected and never know it. But more often than not there is at least one symptom of a spyware infection.

Some of the indicators that you may experience if you’ve been infected with spyware include:

• Endless pop-up windows that open one right after another as you close them.
• You type one Web address into your browser’s address bar but are redirected to another.
• New, unexpected toolbars appear in your web browser.
• New, unexpected icons appear in the task tray at the bottom of your screen.
• Your browser's home page is suddenly changed and each time you try to change it back the effort fails.
• Random Windows error messages begin to appear without explanation.
• The operations of your computer slow dramatically when you’re opening programs or processing tasks such as saving files.

The only way to know for sure if your computer has been infected with spyware, however, is to scan your hard drive using an anti-spyware application.

Protecting Your Computer

Anti-spyware applications work in much the same way that anti-virus applications work. Once you install the anti-spyware application on your computer, you can set it up to scan your files regularly. There’s just one catch: the anti-spyware program has to be up-to-date to do any good.

Here’s a truth about any malicious software that poses a threat to you: criminals are constantly updating, changing, and improving the software so that it will be undetected by protection programs. An anti-spyware application that’s not up-to-date can miss the most recent threats, leaving you vulnerable.

Anti-spyware applications look for spyware based on a signature – that’s an indicator that it might not be a safe program. However, different anti-spyware programs look for different signatures. So, a piece of spyware that is detected by one program may go undetected by another.

To help combat that, I recommend installing at least two different anti-spyware programs on your computer. Use caution when setting them up, however. Make sure that each program is set to scan your computer at a different time or the programs may conflict with each other.

Spyware represents one of the most dangerous threats to your computer if you spend any time online. Take the time to install and configure anti-spyware applications to protect your computer. Without this protection, it’s not a matter of if you’ll be infected, but when and how much damage will be done.

Now Keep Your Lap Cool During Marathon Internet Surfing Sessions

Belkin has unveiled several solutions that'll help keep laptop people like me from burning our tender flesh. Come this October, the bunch of us that adamantly refuse to work from an actual desk can choose between the $64.99 CushTop Hideaway, which doubles as a laptop storage case, or the $39.99 Laptop Cooling Lounge, which uses a fan to divert heat from the body. Having used the smell of searing leg meat as a sign that I've been tethered to my computer too long, I guess I'll now have to find other ways to convince myself to get off the couch.

Passwords: How to better manage them?

Passwords are like the common cold: they induce headaches, no one is immune, and there is no cure in sight.

But they are necessary in this era of digital data, where everything from paying bills to passing notes to sharing photos is done online through user accounts that require some proof that you really are who you say you are. The need for passwords to be both easy to remember and difficult to guess poses what we all know as the password problem.

"This is a horrible problem," said Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer of BT Counterpane, who has written about the situation on his own blog. "Passwords have largely outlived their usefulness."

Still, despite the consensus on the need for a new way to handle online authentication, not much has changed with passwords in more than a decade. Indeed, the issues are exactly the same as they were in 2002, when CNET News last tackled this issue.

"Nothing has been able to overcome the ease of use and affordability of passwords," said Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer of security firm Veracode. "Passwords are all stored internally using the same algorithms of 10 years ago, so password crackers still work and fundamentally haven't had to change," either.

"There is no other technology that is remotely as simple to use on the server side," said Paul Kocher, president of Cryptography Research. "There is a downside. While the convenience is great, our brains aren't wired to keep track of long passwords."

What has changed is the fact that millions more people are using the Internet, storing more and more sensitive data and having to remember more passwords, making the password problem exponentially worse. As a result, most people reuse the same password, which puts their other accounts at risk.

The average computer user has 6.5 passwords, each of which is shared across 4 different sites, and has about 25 accounts that require passwords, according to Microsoft research published last year (PDF).

Each person types in an average of eight passwords every day, the report said.

This means we end up with a laundry list of Web sites, usernames, and passwords to remember. Many people write them down, either in a notebook on their desk or on sticky notes affixed to their computer screen. That might work at home, until an unscrupulous visitor snoops around and decides to see how easy it is to access your bank account. The practice is even less safe at work.

Bruce K. Marshall, a security consultant who founded PasswordResearch.com, writes on his blog that it's OK to write down a new password on a piece of paper to keep in your wallet. But, he says, you shouldn't include the Web site or any other identifying information, and it should be destroyed within a few weeks, once it has been committed to memory.

Many security experts admit that they distinguish sites that require a strong password, such as Amazon.com or PayPal, from sites that don't, like those of The New York Times or a hobby blog. An easy-to-remember password is fine to reuse on the sites that don't host sensitive information, but unique, strong passwords should be used for each of the more sensitive sites, they say.

"One of the things I do is come up with a scheme in my head to permute the password based on the site," Wysopal said. "The simplest thing to do is to tack on a couple of letters to an already strong password for every site you use."

Passphrases, sequences of words, or other text --like "i hate to golf"--are harder to crack than passwords because they are longer. But they can't be used at a lot of sites because of limits on the length of the password.

Thirty to 40 characters would be optimum, while 15 characters is considered a minimum for a strong password, according to Wysopal.

Mixing in uppercase and lowercase letters, and using numbers and symbols, greatly increases the strength of the password or passphrase. For example, "i hate to golf" can be improved by changing it to "1H82G@lf!"

Meanwhile, using words that can be found in a dictionary, even in a foreign language, increases the chance that a password cracker could figure it out, and using pet names, initials, and other personal information is easy for someone--even a stranger with some basic information--to guess.

Chris LoVerme, a technical-operations director for a technology consulting and services firm, suggests on his blog using a math phrase, such as "Ten*10=1000!" because it won't be in a dictionary and would be hard to crack with a brute-force attack, in which a program tries to logically guess the password using every conceivable sequence.

There are also basic good practices that can help people keep their passwords safe, regardless of how strong they are. People should not send their passwords over e-mail or type them into shared computers such as those at Internet cafes and airport lounges, where a keystroke logger could be surreptitiously recording everything you type, Microsoft suggests.

You can test the strength of your password at this Microsoft page.

Choosing the password is only the first step; you've got to remember it. You can have the computer do that for you by setting the browsers to autofill usernames and passwords for you, but this isn't recommended for high-security passwords. You have to set this for every computer you use, and if the computer crashes, the information can be lost forever.

Another option is to use a password manager, software that securely stores the passwords and respective accounts on the user's computer for handy reference. One example is Password Safe, a free, open-source Windows utility Schneier created that protects the passwords in one spot using strong encryption. You just need to remember one password to open it up. But you have to be using the computer on which it's stored to use it.

There's also Passpack, a password-saving service that recently released a Passpack Desktop that exists separate from the browser and lets people manage passwords while offline. The consumer version is free.

Another option is Roboform, software that sells for about $30 that memorizes and stores usernames and passwords the first time they are used and then automatically supplies them thereafter. Then there's Agatra, a free service that securely stores passwords online so they are accessible from anywhere.

Then there's LogOnce Toolbar, a free password manager plug-in for Internet Explorer that stores the information locally or on a remote server and lets you access the passwords from different computers.

Despite early optimism about graphical authentication systems, in which a user clicks on a picture rather than typing in a password, there haven't been many implementations. The reason could be partly due to the fact that they are vulnerable to shoulder surfing, as anyone walking by can see what a user is doing on the screen.

Microsoft hasn't given up on graphical passwords yet. The company funded research on graphical authentication on handhelds at Newcastle University, published last year, that was found to be 1,000 times more secure than ordinary text passwords and easier to remember. In the test, users drew an image, and the software recalled the strokes and the number of times the pen was lifted.

Microsoft also is doing research on something called Inkblot Authentication, which helps users select, remember, and differentiate strong passwords.

Bank of America and Yahoo, which both use password authentication, are additionally using graphical systems, primarily to protect customers against phishing attacks by offering a way to prove that the site is really that of BofA or Yahoo. Yahoo's personalized sign-in seal program lets you submit a photo or image that will appear whenever you log in to the site.

With Bank of America's SiteKey system, customers choose from a set of images and look for that image to be displayed whenever they log in. However, research has found that the SiteKey system is vulnerable to a so-called "man-in-the-middle" attack.

Passwords are the most common type of authentication method. They are used to prove to the system that you know something secret that the authorized person would know. The passwords (like pet names) that you shouldn't use are not to be confused with the challenge-response questions that sites ask you as an added layer of security, such as, "what was the name of your first pet?" and "what's your mother's maiden name?"

There's also two-factor authentication, which combines a password with something you have, such as a smart card or a random number-generating token that offers a one-time password. And then there is three-factor authentication, which includes biometrics-like fingerprint, voice and iris scanning, or even keystroke analysis. They are are designed to prove who you are.

While fingerprint readers are in some laptops, biometrics won't be mainstream anytime soon because of implementation costs and a lack of demand for consumer applications, experts say.

But tokens are gaining some traction. Primarily delegated to the corporate world because of their cost (about $40 per user) and infrastructure needs, they are growing in appeal as computer users get increasingly frustrated and paranoid about their online activities. For instance, complaints about account hijacking and other security concerns led the makers of World of Warcraft to recently start offering an electronic token device for $6.50 as an added layer of security for fans of the online role-playing game.

A cheaper, analog version of a token is the "bingo card," a wallet-size card that has a unique grid of rows and columns with randomly generated number-and-letter combinations in each cell. After logging into a system, a user is asked to provide the data in a particular cell.

Another authentication type that is starting to get some use in limited applications is designed to show where you are based on the certificate in the cable or DSL modem someone uses to connect to the Internet. However, because it is location-based, you could only use it, for things like Web banking, from your home.

"Cisco and Nortel are getting into using location as a factor of authentication," said David Miller, chief security officer for Covisint, an identity broker that oversees data access services for industry groups and government agencies. Covisint is in talks with Comcast about implementing a location-based authentication service for its customers, he said.

"We could say this ID can only be used from this authenticated point," he said. "For someone to hack into my account, they would have to break into my house."

There are all sorts of centralized services that provide a single sign-on for multiple sites. Symantec's Norton Identity Client lets consumers manage different identities and passwords across the Web. With Windows Live ID service, people can log in to Microsoft and partner Web sites using one account.

Other options for corporations are systems such as Symark International's PowerKeeper appliance that offer a onetime password to employees for a specific task or time period. This not only eliminates the need for workers to remember passwords, but it could help prevent situations like that involving Lending Tree, in which employees allegedly gave customer passwords and other information to outside firms.

Some authentication systems for very sensitive data and transactions can be set to call the user's cell phone or send a text message seeking a verification, according to Matt Shannahan, senior vice president at AdmitOne Security, which offers a keystroke dynamics type of behavioral biometrics authentication product. There's also authentication software that checks to see whether a computer has been compromised or has other security problems before accepting a user's login, he said.

PasswordResearch's Marshall is surprised that the password problem persists while other, seemingly harder technology issues have been resolved over the years.

"I thought that in my lifetime, we'd see passwords disappear because there would be more secure alternatives," he said. "But they will continue to have a role, either as a primary or secondary authenticator. People are so familiar with them."