Pro IT Zone

The first beta version of Internet Explorer 8 does not communicate with Windows Update. The browser also experiences problems with, between others, Gmail and Windows Live Mail from the proper Microsoft.

Couple of weeks ago, Microsoft announced the possibility to downloading the first version Internet Explorer 8 beta, which can be executed in the systems Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008.

As the majority of the programs in version beta, Internet Explorer 8 presents a series of errors and problems of compatibility. The users who try to use Windows Update with IE8 are received by the following notification: “To use this site, you must be running Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later “.

To solve the problem it is possible to configure the browser so that it “behaves” as his predecessor Internet Explorer 7. In a blog of the network MSDN (Microsoft Developers’ Network), the programmer Erik Law, from Microsoft, has written that the interested users can click in a button named “emulate” and later to close all the active windows of the browser. Then it is necessary to begin the program again and from there go to the Windows System Update.

The Internet Explorer 8 problems do not limit themselves to the updates of Windows. In diverse specializing forums there appear comments about users who have experienced problems with Gmail and Windows Live Mail and others.

The version Internet Explorer 8 beta was presented in the conference Mix and it can be downloaded from the Microsoft’s website.

Till now, the United States and the American users have had the majority in Internet, which now has finished.

From the Internet dawns, the United States with its 300 million habitants have dominated Internet, so much in terms of contents as of technical presence. With its “majority power” and the fact that the big providers of Internet technologies are American, the network itself has been characterized, for good and for evil, by the American values as the opening, equal treatment and the free competition.

Nevertheless, the situation has changed. According to new numbers and statistics, the growth of the well-being in China does that at present time more Internet users exist in this Asian country than in the United States. The information is contained in two analyses prepared in China, which sums the current situation up.

The information is provided by the proper Chinese authorities and a private company of this country. The entity China Internet Network Information Center makes sure that the population of Chinese users increases in 6.1 million users a month, and that it would have already reached 225 million users. For this part, the company BDA China thinks that the number is higher and places it in 228,5 millions.

If credit happens to the numbers, China would have overcome then the United States, where 217.1 millions of users have access to Internet in their works or homes. BDA annotates, in any case, that indicates that China has a much lower position with regard to the United States both in terms of electronic commerce and in commercialization of online announcements.

The current situation and majority presence of China in Internet might give to the authorities and companies of this country a new impulse to promote technological proper standards.

As I said in a couple of posts before, 2008 is going to be a great year for technology, especially in notebooks. This is because the major notebook vendors are launching a lot models in which they are integrating new technologies.

Each month a new announcement is made, it seems that nobody wants to stay behind. First was Apple with the Mac Book air, which has been criticized because of their heating problems. Later Lenovo come launching a frontal attack against Apple with their new model the ThinkPad X300. Now it’s the turn for Toshiba to reveille their new product; the Toshiba Satellite U305 series.

In some of the features that are included select model of the U305 is the biometric fingerprint reader. As standard features it includes integrated webcam (very useful for web conferencing and video chat), 13.3″ Wide Screen, and integrated CDRW/DVDRW burner.

According to the specs published on their website, honestly at my personal point of view I see this is product dedicated more the SOHO and consumer sectors, it will not compete directly against a Lenovo X300 or a MacBook Air, but it seems to be an excellent choice if you are looking for price and performance.

Up to now, I think that we have to wait until HP and Dell announce any models with which they are going to get into this “notebook war”. Up to date we have only Apple, Lenovo, Sony and Toshiba with the new 13.3 Wide screens, this kind of screens are giving big benefits because they allow vendors to manufacture portable, light weight and robust notebooks without compromising processing power, but I think more competition is needed on the market so the consumers can benefit with better technologies and better prices.

It is well know that people today uses the Internet service available in their cell phone because of the convenience that it offers.

It is easy to use, it is available anywhere at any time and it is becoming cheaper to use. In some European countries like Austria, Denmark and Sweden the Internet service for cell phones has a cost of $31 per month, in some Latin American countries the cost is of $35 per month, of course the rates will vary on each country.

One of the biggest challenges of the mobile Internet is that the price has to be very accessible and the roaming rates should also be reasonable, also the availability and the places it reaches, speed and bandwidth are also important.

There now available new technologies that are integrated into the most recent notebooks, this technology is known as HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) which is a set some protocols of mobile telephony that improves the performance of cellular technologies, specially the 3G. This technology is mainly integrated to notebooks by Ericsson.

The HSPA is a posterior and complementary technology to 3G, it is also known as 3.5G It will admit speeds up to 14.4Mbps downloading and 2Mbps uploading, that will depend on the network and the implementation. Right now the current speeds are up to 3.6Mbps downloading and 384Kbps uploading.

This is a reason why people is starting to prefer to use Mobile Technology Internet instead of hotspots, without mentioning availability and security reasons.

Many companies of IT security warns that diverse products like routers, switches and other technological devices made in China may contain espionage software.

As it is indicated, it has already been detected malware in USB memories, MP3 players and other devices for consumers. For general norm, these products are connected to a PC in order to update their connectors, with what they turn into a source of spread of malicious code.

These products are equipped with one or another form of memory, in which it is possible to conceal such codes. Nevertheless, more serious really still such programs can be incorporated in corporate software, as for example chipsets of routers, cards of networks, firewalls, etc. This type of hardware is considered to be a “safe” as standard and therefore it is never analyzed in search of malicious code before starting to use it, indicates the company of computer security Virus 112.

During the cold war, the United States would have incorporated listening devices in telephonic systems exported to Russia, in order to intercept conversations. For such a reason, there cannot be discarded the possibility that similar forms of spying take place nowadays. Virus112 adds that not necessarily it must be a question of the countries spying to other countries. Well it can be a question of individuals with access to the factory in question.

The British entity SecureTest, for their part, recommends to the government of their country to modify directly their security policies so that they include a standard analysis of the hardware. The traditional antivirus software hardly can detect malicious secret codes in hardware. SecureTest indicates that “the idea of brand new hardware products are automatically safe to use should be illusory”.