A top Microsoft executive is warning PeopleSoft customers that they might want to think about a technology shift, now that Oracle's acquisition has been approved.

"Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft may be moving forward, but difficult technology decisions lie ahead," Microsoft vice president Bill Veghte wrote Wednesday in the e-mail, which was seen by CNET News.com. "The ongoing challenges of owning and maintaining business applications remain unchanged."

such as SAP or Microsoft.

"Migration to another ERP solution, including Microsoft Business Solutions, SAP and other partner ERP solutions on the Microsoft platform, are additional options available to PeopleSoft customers seeking greater clarity around technology direction and platform alignment," Veghte said. "The Microsoft platform continues to gain momentum as the platform of choice for industry-leading ERP vendors."

Read the full thing at CNET's News.com.

Google scored a big legal win Wednesday when a federal judge ruled that its use of trademarks in keyword advertising is legal.

Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Google's motion to dismiss a trademark-infringement complaint brought by Geico. The insurance company had charged Google with violating its trademarks by using the word "Geico" to trigger rival ads in sponsored search results. Geico claimed the practice diluted its trademarks and caused consumer confusion.

The judge said that "as a matter of law it is not trademark infringement to use trademarks as keywords to trigger advertising," said Michael Page, a partner at Keker & Van Nest, which represented Google.

The ruling is a triumph for Google in that it derives as much as 95 percent of its advertising revenue from keyword-triggered ads, which appear next to Web search results. Trademarks play a central role to the sale of such ads because people often use Web search to find products and services with common, trademarked brand names such as Nike or Geico.

The ruling also could inform similar trademark-infringement cases online, legal experts say. For example, Google is being sued by American Blind and Wallpaper for trademark infringement by its keyword ad program.

Read the whole thing: CNET's News.com

Early next year we are going to be creating multiple tiers of moderators.

For instance, we want to seperate forum moderators from skinning moderators.  The job of a particular forum moderator would be to keep their section (and sub-sections) reasonably on-topic as well as try to find interesting things to talk about.

These moderators would also be in charge of articles of the same category.  These are people who would write/post articles about OS Customization, Personal Computing, Tutorials, etc. that either they write or found on the net. These wouldn't necessarily be news posts but rather be article posts.  I posted a couple of articles tonight that show the kinds of articles we would be looking at.

So for starters we would want someone who would be in charge of OS Customization, someone in charge of General, and someone in charge of Personal Computing.  They would write articles and forum posts on these topics, make sure other topics were appropriate.  We generally shy away from being very strict on posting (i.e. we don't want to be riding people's every post, we just want to make sure the site remains a pleasant place to visit).

As these areas become mroe successful, we would then have sub-moderators who woudl be in charge of things like PersonalComputer->Hardware and PersonalComputer->Windows Software and so forth.

So who would be interested in this?

Share with us a screenshot of you ObjectDock'd desktop!

 

You guys are going to love ObjectDock 1.1. There's a ton of little tweaks in there based on requests including a bit of a zooming when you mouse over an icon in a tabbed dock.

Research company Gartner has issued a statement warning businesses to steer clear of Google's desktop search tool until a more robust, enterprise-ready version is released.

While the tool is potentially extremely attractive to employees, Gartner states in a recent research note, IT managers should discourage users from adopting it and instead opt for a more business-ready, secure search engine.

"We have no problem with it being used for personal use," said Gartner research director Maurene Grey. "Our concern is (that) when it is used in a corporation, we have some security and privacy issues. Google says it will collect only nonpersonal data, but in a corporation how can you monitor what's being collected?"

You can read the whole thing [Here].

The Motion Picture Association of America launched a new legal campaign Tuesday targeting the BitTorrent and eDonkey file-swapping networks, two technologies widely used to trade movies online.

Ratcheting up its previous online antipiracy efforts, the Hollywood group is working with law enforcement agencies in the United States and Europe to target and arrest individuals who play a critical role in the functioning of each type of network.

Full article: [Here]

 

Often times it's much easier to chat voice than chat with the keyboard.

To that end there is a program called Ventrilo. We have a server that we put up a long time ago that you are free to make use of.  My friend Alex has a guild called Digital Marines (DIM).  I let them use the ventrilo server as well and they're a good bunch of guys.

First you'll need to download the Ventrilo client:

[Download Here]

Once you have it installed, it will need to point to a server: cs.stardock.com. Put in your userID and password.

There are some tricks to make it work better once you have it installed:

1) Click on the Setup button and make sure you have "Use Push-To-Talk" hotkey and then set the hot key to be something like F12.

2) Turn off the sound effects in the events tab.

3) Turn off the Check for new version in the global tab. We use Ventrilo 2.1, not 2.2 or later. The newer versions only work on newer servers and we haven't had the inclination to mess with updating the server (i.e. if it ain't broke, don't fix it).

Since this requires a microphone, I suggest testing to make sure your mic is working.  The way I do this is load up sound recorder. Start->Accessories->Entertainment->Sound recorder. You can use this to say "Test test test" and what not to make sure the volume is what you ant it to be.  I personally use the Logitech mic that's at Best Buy. It's USB and easier to configure. You do have to make sure that the program is using that Mic. )voice tab, look at the Output device drop down box).

Once you are in, there is a World of Warcraft channel.  My friend Alex already has a bunch of channels set up. Don't go into the PVPing channel since that's strictly for player vs. player.  Generally, I go into the Questing channel in the Delta sub-channel (you'll see what I mean). 

But if you really ever get stuck and need help, look for Jax or Pillz or Vexen. They know WoW inside and out. Just tell them I (Brad/Draginol) sent you. The rest of them won't have any idea who I am (they have no idea who their benefactor is <g>).

If you have any questions, just post here and I'll try to help.

Stardock has released a free "Holiday Desktop" theme. This theme includes everything the user needs to seamlessly change the complete look and feel of Windows XP.

This suite shows off the power of Stardock’s Object Desktop, which allows users to completely customize the look, feel and function of Windows. Once the holidays are over, a user can simply turn it off and return their system to its pre-holiday look and feel. 

The suite includes a visual style that changes the Windows XP user interface, a wallpaper, a set of icons, a calendar, and other goodies.

It uses the same technology that companies such as Alienware, Microsoft, nVidia, ATI, Nintendo and others have licensed to create their own branded desktop environments.

For more information visit:
https://www.stardock.com/products/themes/holidaydesktop
 
Screenshot:
https://www.stardock.com/products/themes/holidaydesktop/HolidayDesktop2004.jpg

The last couple weeks have been very rough at work. I've been doing more hours than I care to.  Last week I did approximately 77 hours.  This week I'll probably do another 60.

Had a major negotiation with a major publisher to license their trademark fall apart today. Months of effort wasted. The terms had been agreed on but the lawyers killed it. Every little detail had to be micro-managed, signed off on by every party, to a scale that was simply unmanageable. It would have cost us as much to comply with the contract's endless (and often arbitrary) compliance requirements as it would have to make the game.  So today we finally had to throw in the towel and say "Thanks but no thanks, this is way too much of a headache for us to deal with." One can only imagine the kinds of headaches are involved in licensing a famous book or movie to be made into a game.

Meanwhile, work here keeps backing up. www.WinCustomize.com is slowly getting fixed up but there's a ton of little bugs on it that have to be taken care of. And those bugs affect JoeUser.com exquisitely. 

The only bright side is that our internal software projects are going well. Got good news from the ObjectBar 2 team, DesktopX 2.4 is nearly ready and ThinkDesk components are coming along nicely. And the Galactic Civilizations II team has some really neat stuff in the works.

I did spend some time today completing the "Prelude to War" campaign for Galactic Civilizations: Altarian prophecy (www.galciv.com).  I think people will like this a lot when it comes out.

But overall, there's just so much to do that it's unbelievable.