Monday, January 5, 2009

TECH CHRONICLES / A daily dose of postings from The Chronicle's technology blog (sfgate.com/blogs/tech)

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Facebook executive director graduating to VC firm

Matt Cohler, one of Facebook's earlier hires, is leaving the Palo Alto social-networking startup for a occupation at a Silicon Valley venture working capital firm.

Facebook made the proclamation Thursday. Cohler, frailty president of merchandise direction at Facebook, will autumn in Benchmark Capital as a general spouse in the fall. But he'll remain in touching with Facebook as a particular advisor to Facebook laminitis and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg and the senior direction team.

The 31-year-old executive already have A jammed resume: He was a initiation member of LinkedIn, the Mountain Position societal web recently valued at $1 billion; served as a adviser for McKinsey; and worked in Peking at AsiaInfo Holdings Inc., a telecom company that helped construct China's Internet infrastructure.

Said Zuckerberg in a statement: Cohler "has been an of import subscriber to Facebook's growing and success."

- Ellen Lee
GM, museums among robo-cars' admirers

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which most famously sponsored the early research behind the Internet, have lit a fire under robotics in recent old age by sponsoring a series of driverless auto races meant to develop crash-avoidance sensors and software.

Now, two of DARPA's title-holder robo-cars are back in the news. General Motors Corp. said Thursday that it will put $5 million in a five-year joint research undertaking with Dale Carnegie Andrew Mellon University, whose "Boss" robo-car won a race held last twelvemonth in a citylike setting.

"Imagine being virtually chauffeured in your auto while doing your e-mail, eating breakfast and watching the news," gram Frailty President for Research Larry George Burns said in a statement. "The work we're doing with Dale Carnegie Andrew Mellon is a large stepping rock toward making this a reality."

Stanford University's "Stanley" - the robo-car that South Korean won a 2005 dash across the Mohave Desert - is making a monthlong cavity halt at the Technical School Museum of Invention in San Jose before going on show at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Stanley, a Volkswagen guided by self-driving software developed at Stanford, just returned from a planetary triumph lap that took it to Singapore, Johannesburg and Munich. Until July 17, it will be strutting its stuff, for free, at San Jose's Technical School before being sent to rest on its award at the newly renovated Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

- Uncle Tom Abate
ITunes atop the human race of music retailing

Earlier this year, iTues leapfrogged into the No. One place as the nation's top music retailer, surpassing even Wal-Mart, according to NPD. The iTunes Shop offers more than than 8 million songs for sale online.

Apple, the Cupertino shaper of the iPod and iPhone, also said it is renting or merchandising 50,000 movies per day.

- Ellen Lee
HP to consolidate its printing businesses

Print 2.0, Hewlett-Packard's transmutation of its printing business, continues. The company said it is consolidating five of its printing groupings into three units of measurement with an oculus toward streamlining the concern around certain key client segments.

The move affects foldable HP's stores grouping into the remaining units of measurement and combining the endeavor grouping with the ink jet plane unit. That assists horsepower focusing on three markets: consumers and little businesses, enterprise, and commercial printing and graphics.

HP said the reorganisation was not aimed at eliminating jobs. There will be a rebalancing of resources to suit the changes, the company said.

HP have been remaking its black and white concern over the last twelvemonth since it announced its Print 2.0 strategy. It's moving away from being just a shaper of pressmen to being a printing company that supplies a assortment of hardware and solutions for all kinds of customers.

One of the big countries of growth, which this reorg addresses, is the chance in large graphical and commercial printing jobs, such as as signs, hoardings and publications. horsepower have said that the small-scale printing it's been known for in the past brands up lone 15 percentage of the millions of pages printed each year.

- Ryan Kim

How a marketing firm implemented an enterprise wiki - NetworkWorld.com

Neil Callahan, President of Digital, had a simple thought for at his New York-based selling firm. He would begin with a little group, allow them dwell it with helpful information such
as meeting short letters and presentations, and then throw it up as an illustration to other departments. Those groups, in turn, would create
their ain wikis.

But moving towards a new tool like a wiki for collaboration, especially when people are so used to exchanging information
over e-mail, tin be just as large a cultural challenge as it is a technical one. E-mail have been the basic of communication
for many houses for well more than than a decade. As a result, Callahan says, it's critical to have got a concern leader ain the project
and promote wiki adoption. It also helps, of course, to pick a wiki with an easy user interface so users won't diffident away
from contributing to it. Don't Miss!

Picking a Sociable Software Platform

Large sellers such as as as have got added societal software system to their offerings, but Callahan states such merchandises (SharePoint in particular) required too much
clip and attempt to implement, especially for a company with lone 300 full-time employees. "There is just too much policy and
administration direction with SharePoint," he says. "We weren't going to child ourselves into thought we needed that. We aren't
going to set people in the punishment box if they don't accede to some administration or policy." Related Content

Instead, Callahan picked , a company which do wiki software system designed for businesses. The user interface lets people to redact and pull strings information with no hypertext markup language or coding experience. Power users - people who
redact frequently - can use a assortment of cutoffs to upload links, written documents and other information with greater efficiency.

While Socialtext offers clients the pick to host the information on premise, Callahan opted for a software system as a service (SaaS)
theoretical account where the seller hosts the data, citing less care costs. He also states he experiences comfy with the security
the seller provides.

"It's encrypted and protected, and we could set a VPN [virtual private network] around it if we needed to," Callahan says. "But we're not putting fiscal statements and employee wages on there or anything." 1

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Affiliate Marketing Revealed - Your First 2 Steps to Affiliate Success

When you are just starting out with affiliate selling it can be hard to defy the impulse to take respective affiliate products. After all, it's all there for the taking. What's more, from all the affiliate selling tips and testimonies that you've been reading up on, it looks that the best manner to profligate in the high-fluting affiliate dollars is to have got respective affiliate products. But if you halt and take the clip to backtrack and re-read those testimonials, you will see that every successful affiliate seller have been in the game for at least a couple of old age or more. When you are just starting out it may be best to utilize the best tips you've learnt to take one or two affiliate merchandises that you cognize and are interested in.

The First 2 Steps To Affiliate Selling Success

The 1st Step: Start with a field that you have got some expertness in. Even if it makes not offer you the best committee or if it is not the best converting, it is easier for you to construct a successful land site around a topic that you are cognize and are interested in. Being familiar with a subject lets you to shoot the land land land site with a personal touching and offering valuable insight, which is almost impossible if you are building a site around something you cognize nil about and worse still; are not interested in at all.

The 2nd Step- Once your 1st site is established; it will begin generating money steadily and will not necessitate your full clip attention. All it necessitates is a small tweaking now and then. Now is the clip that you can begin thought about expanding. One of the tips you should mind when choosing affiliate merchandises is that it is often best and easiest to lodge to familiar merchandises rather than straying into unknown terrain.

Fiber access gains on cable for broadband access - NetworkWorld.com

For the first time, fiber-based entree is expanding faster than cable: 4.2 million compared to 2.5 million endorsers were added during the first quarter,
according to the analysts at Point Topic.

"It's a important milepost for fiber-optic broadband; where it is available consumers will take fibre over other broadband
technologies," said Joseph Oliveer Johnson, chief executive officer at Point Topic. Don't Miss!

Johnson is convinced fibre will go the greatest entree technology. In three to five old age it will go through cable, and that
it will be about 10 old age before it goes larger than DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), he said. That is, unless something
haps to do it possible for DSL to maintain up with bandwidth demands.

Currently there are 42 million fibre broadband users worldwide, compared to 79.6 million cablegram and 238 million DSL subscribers. "DSL is adding more than endorsers than fibre in absolute numbers, but not in per centum growth," said Johnson. Related Content

Users who take fibre are also getting "more spots for their buck", according to Point Topic. The cost for fibre can acquire as
low as US$0.50 per megabit per month, compared to US$20 for DSL and US$12 for cable, taking planetary averages.

The growing of fibre Numbers is being driven by People'S Republic Of China (which is closing inch on the U.S. in footing of the sum figure of subscribers),
Japanese Islands and South Korea, where cablegram and DSL are losing endorsers to fiber. Collectively Asia amount to over 35 million subscribers,
according to Point Topic.

In the U.S. and Europe fibre is having a harder time. Deploying the engineering is still expensive, and incumbent operators
are loath to share infrastructure, according to Johnson.

"Without some word form of centralised support it will be a long clip before consumers in these marketplaces acquire entree to cheaper bandwidth,"
said Johnson.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Microsoft security fix clobbers 2 million password stealers - NetworkWorld.com

Microsoft's June security updates were bad news for online felons who do their life stealing watchword information from
online gamers.

The company's Malicious Software Removal Tool -- a programme that detects and takes viruses and other bad programmes from Windows
machines -- removed game password-stealing software system from more than than 2 million PCs in the first hebdomad after it was updated to
observe these programmes on June 10. Don't Miss!

One watchword stealer, called , was detected on 700,000 computing machines in the first twenty-four hours after the update. That's twice as many infections as were spotted during
the full calendar month after Microsoft began detecting the ill-famed Storm Worm malware last September.

"These are pathetic Numbers of infections my friends, absolutely mind-boggling," wrote Flatness McCormack, a spokesman with
Microsoft's Malware Response Center, in a Related Content

Between June 10 and June 17, Microsoft removed Taterf from about 1.3 million machines, he said.

Microsoft's September sensings seriously hobbled the Storm Worm botnet, once considered a top Internet threat.

Password thiefs such as as Taterf are among the most common types of malicious software system on the Internet. That's because there's
big money to be made merchandising the practical currencies used in online games for real-world cash.

Once a criminal larns a gamer's username and password, he can log into the game and sell the victim's practical possessions
for practical gold coins. Those coins are then handed to another fictional character in the game who sells the gold for real-world dollars
at an online exchange such as as , said Greg Hoglund, chief executive officer of HBGary and a co-author of the book

"There's no manner to scrutinize that money transfer, so effectively they're doing money laundering," he said. "There's almost zero
hazard for the attackers."

The password-stealing programmes are often installed via Web-based onslaught codification that deeds flaws in multimedia system programmes such
as Adobe's Flash Player or Apple's QuickTime Player, Hoglund said.

The onslaughts are often technically sophisticated, exploiting previously unrevealed bugs in Windows software, said Roger Thompson,
main research military officer with AVG Technologies. "The 'World of Warcraft' watchword thiefs have got provided most of the innovation
over the last twelve months," he said via instantaneous message. 1

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

Make Money Online - Is it One of Your New Year Resolutions?

It is all right to have got New Year Resolutions if to you it is a summary or crystallisation of your programs for the New Year. Bash you desire to do money online this year? If yes, how much and what is the clip line you are working to?

Is it more than than a wishing to you? Rich Person you made plans? Rich Person you written down your programs with inside information on how you are going to accomplish each milestone? Bash you cognize exactly what you necessitate to make to accomplish each milestone?

If you have got failed to program then you are planning to fail. The good news is it is never too late to start. You can pull up your program today. Your program should spell out clearly what you desire to accomplish and how you are going to accomplish it. Write out your program and set your program where you can see it daily - maintain it in presence of your eyes. Whenever possible verbalize your program to yourself daily by speech production it out aloud.

As you make this you cultivate a image of your dreamings and ends on your interior and you will accomplish it. Integrate your concern ends with your personal goals. It will do it that much easier to accomplish and the journeying enjoyable.

For example," I am going to gain $ Ten online from each niche I am in asset I am going to eat healthy this year."

Then strategically map out for each niche what that compares to on a monthly and a day-to-day basis. You necessitate to define your finish and then work backwards. Are it deserving the attempt you may ask? It is if you mean to truly do money online this year. It is better to begin late than not at all.

Make it portion of your declaration to begin planning today!

Friday, January 2, 2009

Affiliate Marketing Sales Facts - How to Improve Affiliate Sales

If you're thinking of setting up your ain concern on the Internet, one of the most tested and tested selling methods you should see using is affiliate marketing. There are many ways with which you can hike affiliate selling gross sales in the shortest clip possible, but the 1 tip you can swear is this: addition an apprehension of what this is and how you can stretch along its money-making potential.

In its simplest sense, affiliate selling is the usage of one website for the intent of drive traffic to another. It is an Internet-based selling pattern that many advertizers be given to overlook because of its similarity to other selling patterns used in the worldwide web today.

You can hike affiliate selling gross sales by using the methods that separate affiliate selling from the remainder of the selling patterns out there. The success of it trusts greatly on the persuasive powerfulness of well-written reviews of the merchandises and services offered by a partner, as well as the content handling of website managers. These countries are where you should concentrate if you desire to do money steadily through affiliate marketing.

Aside from this, you should also larn to transport a low profile. You can utilize promotional tactics that make not enforce heavily on possible customers; otherwise, you'll frighten them away and look as a fake. By developing a website that is content-laden, enlightening and interesting at the same time, you can see a important positive alteration in the figure of gross sales that you will acquire over time.