I thought I would never get to see this…

When I was pushing JAVA as an Evangelist back in the old days, the battle between Sun Microsystems (mostly Scott McNealy) and Microsoft (Bill Gates) was really hot and furious.

Sun (even myself) took every opportunity to spit on Microsoft’s Technology during the dotCom days.

Now things have changed… both Sun and Microsoft has mellowed, they worked together and compete on a higher level rather than below the belt tactics.

Would You Like Live Search With Your Java?

“Our goal is to provide Java users with compelling and immersive business and consumer solutions powered by Java technology and value-added solutions from world-class software partners,” Rich Green, Sun’s executive vice president of software, said in a statement.

Sadly Google do not think lightly of the decision…

Sun Chooses Microsoft Over Google, StarOffice Dumped From Google Pack?

StarOffice dropped from Google Pack

Well the option is yours ! You don’t have to install MSN toolbar if you don’t want to. But I find it pretty cool with all the non-typical features that other toolbars do not do provide.

Give it a try ! You can always uninstall it cleanly.

Kick start your Web Development with Microsoft !

Previously you hear a lot of news about cloud services (Yahoo, Google and Microsoft Live mostly…)

But what is available for you if you want to host or create your own web applications ?

Traditionally, you would use Open Source Operating Systems like Linux/BSD/Solaris and the Open Source Software (PERL, PHP, JAVA, AJAX, etc…). I know I did that in the past to save cost on everything (except your paycheck).

Wouldn’t it be good if you have access to a simple set of installers to kick start your development instead of spending precious time and effort on configuring stuff?

Or perhaps you came from an Enterprise background in the past (working for MNCs etc…) but decided to strike it out on your own. Don’t you miss those Enterprise tools ?

Now you can get them in a couple of simple installers.

Microsoft Web Platform Installer [installs Microsoft's entire Web Platform, including IIS7, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework.]

Microsoft Web Application Installer [Graffiti CMS, DotNetNuke, WordPress, Drupal, OSCommerce and phpBB]

Yes, FREE. Yes, you still can build mash-ups with Yahoo, Google and Microsoft Live Services with it!

You can read more about the announcement here.

Yahoo BOSS Hack Day

I was at Yahoo Southeast Asia office in Singapore for the Yahoo BOSS Hack Day on 20th November 2008, Thursday.

Which, by the way, was also the day for  “Overview of Microsoft Azure”…

Like what I have told Jon, I choose Yahoo for the beer.

Yup! Jeremy took a look into the tub for a confirmation and there they are. Tiger Beer! Plus some quick finger food/dinner.

They have a fantastic office which easily beats mine.

The place was geared for Geeks from what I can see, where technical skills rule and going all out to help any Customer succeed in the web is their mantra.

There were stickers and cool long sleeves T-Shirts, which I grab a few…

Laptop Stickers are the “in” thing.

Sau Sheong was there to give his talk on the overview of the projects before Bill, Ashim and Christian went deep into BOSS.

You can try it out in one of many ways…e.g.

4hourSearch [aka YUIL but CUIL got pissed and sent a cease and desist letter.]

hakia, Me.dium Search, Daylife, Cluuz, etc… hah ! Bet you didn’t know Hakia is powered by Yahoo!

The audience. Hmm… must show off the Macs !

There is a mix of people from mostly students to even a person with a title of “Domain Head, Business Modelling, Business IT Asia Pacific” !

There were even developers from many camps… Nice chatting with them!

Yes, there are things that even Google is not a complete solution to.

I was also asked a whole bunch of questions. What I find interesting was the fact that there was a general lack of knowledge of what Microsoft can provide in terms of Web 2.0 stuff and cutting edge technology. Sigh…

Overall, Yahoo has great technology in the backend (highly scalable, valuable search indexes) and opening the access for the masses is good.

Developers will save time (basic indexing of the web will cost $300 million easy), APIs are constantly upgraded and BOSS has unlimited usage. They can do mash-ups with other non-Yahoo APIs and services too!

Customers may find themselves inadvertently using Yahoo Search in various format and fashion as long as it serve their end goals.

Yahoo! will then be able to monetize and pump more resources into the system.

Win win win.

I think like AJAX frameworks, such services by various companies are not a zero-sum game. Mash-ups between them is possible and it just makes the Internet more valuable and interesting.

Why non-US/CA Geeks should get a Zune…

I had a Zune (30Gb) for almost 2 years and it was a version 1.0 hardware and brown. Pretty chunky by today’s standard (a whopping 120Gb!).

But what is impressive :

1. Hardware – It was robust (it survived my daily 2 hours commute and APAC travels), including the earphones which I can stick together via tiny magnets (a great thing when you want to listen to the Zune while making a phone call on the other ear). The music, video, radio and picture quality easily beat the Apple iPod IMHO.
2. Firmware – My Zune may be old but the brain is the latest possible. Version 3.0 (225) Version 3.1 (50)!!! with Bootloader 435 Grab it here ! Read more about the update here. More Games !
3. Software – It took me 10 minutes to get used to the UI but what I like about it… is the marketplace.

See Wikipedia for Software/Firmware changes.

Here’s the review by CNet back in 14 Nov 2006 !

So what’s so good about it for non-US Geeks like me since it is only available for USA/Canada?

Psst. You can dump your own MP3, AAC, WMA, WMVs, MPEG4, H.264, ASF, JPEG, etc… into the Zune. You just cannot buy stuff from the marketplace outside of USA/Canada.

Ok, if you cannot buy stuff, what’s so good about it for non-US/CA geeks ?

Well that’s #4. Podcasts. I love the podcast feature which I can add free Audio and Video podcasts, including your very own RSS feeds which is not in the Marketplace (like The Guardian, Mr. Brown, Scientific American…) yet!.

Now I can listen or view the very latest on CNN, Discovery, HBO, Boing Boing, Anderson Cooper, Cringely and more while commuting or waiting for others !

With the Zune Firmware and Software updates, it just gets better and better!

What’s even nicer ? Price Cuts !

Yeah !

Yahoo! Mail, YPops ! and POP3 client…

I had been using YPops! (http://ypopsemail.com/) to pop Yahoo mail for a long time. But recently I noticed that there are 12 email which got choked on the download. But the rest of the emails are successfully POPed.

Strangely if you have YPOPs! 0.9.5.8, it does not know the fact that a newer YPOPs! 0.9.5.9 is already released and can fix the bug!

In any case, download here http://dbeusee.home.comcast.net/~dbeusee/ypops-win-0.9.5.9.exe
or go to http://ypopsemail.com/ to grab the latest of the day.

-
Zac

Message number 8 could not be retrieved. Account: ‘Yahoo’, Server: ‘localhost’, Protocol: POP3, Server Response: ‘-ERR message 8 could not be downloaded’, Port: 1101, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 0×800CCC90, Error Number: 0×800420CD

Message number 11 could not be retrieved. Account: ‘Yahoo’, Server: ‘localhost’, Protocol: POP3, Server Response: ‘-ERR message 11 could not be downloaded’, Port: 1101, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 0×800CCC90, Error Number: 0×800420CD

Message number 15 could not be retrieved. Account: ‘Yahoo’, Server: ‘localhost’, Protocol: POP3, Server Response: ‘-ERR message 15 could not be downloaded’, Port: 1101, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 0×800CCC90, Error Number: 0×800420CD