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In this Issue:

• Featured Site - MC Speaking Services
• 74% of all e-mail in Q2 2008 was spam
• Innovation agency goes Vista
• Apple grows Australian market share
• Windows 7 details in October
• Quotes of the day

Featured Site  

MC Speaking Services

Greg McCallum brings an exciting and fresh approach to your speaking requirements. Greg is a former teacher, international referee and executive administrator and has worked throughout the world delivering high quality speaking engagements, event hosting and is an experienced and entertaining master of ceremonies.

Combining his vast experiences at the cutting edge of professional sport with an understanding of the delivery of key outcomes in the business world Greg McCallum is a welcome addition to your seminar or corporate event.

Greg has, during his long career, been a guest speaker at both the House of Lords and House of Commons in London and has hosted live sports shows on both BBC TV and BBC Radio. Visit the MC Speaking Services website...

74% of all e-mail in Q2 2008 was spam  

In Q2 2008, 74% of all mail received was spam.

In Q2 2008, Turkey became the country with most zombie computers (11% of the global total), followed by Brazil (8.4%) and Russia (7.4%). The USA, which in the Q1 2008 accounted for 5% of all zombies, is now in ninth place with just 4.3% of the total.

Google Adwords has been at the center of one of the most notable attacks over the last quarter, PandaLabs says. This Google service had been used previously to launch phishing attacks and the trend continues. This type of attack uses social engineering to trick users into revealing confidential details (bank account numbers, passwords, etc.). ZDNetAustralia August 2008.

Innovation agency goes Vista  

The federal Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research has flagged plans to replace a desktop computer supply contract held until recently by Dell, as part of a broader move to Windows Vista and Office 2007.

The hardware refresh comes as part of the agency's plan to upgrade its Windows XP Service Pack 2 operating systems to Windows Vista. The agency has also planned to deploy Office 2007 in place of its current 2003 Office suite.

The department is Australia's peak innovation agency and is responsible for several national initiatives and research organisations that aim to improve the efficiency of the Australian economy.

The contract had been held by Dell until 30 June this year; however, the department waited until 11 August to go to market for a new supplier. Dell could also win the contract again.

The department has required an immediate refresh of its existing stock of PCs, with staff currently using computers that are over four years old. It has anticipated that 2,400 desktops and 400 laptops will be required to be delivered before December this year.

The purchasing initiative will also cover requirements of Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism. The tender will close on 1 September 2008. ZDNetAustralia August 2008.

Comment: This decision probably had nothing to do with the Innovation arm of this govt. agency... Ed.

Apple grows Australian market share  

Apple's share of the Australian personal computer market has jumped sharply in the last year, according to statistics released this week by Australia's two largest technology analyst firms.

In the three months making up the second quarter of 2008, Apple's share of the local PC market was 5.3 per cent, according to Gartner, compared to 3.8 per cent for the same period in 2007.

With the firm estimating that Australians bought 1.2 million desktops or laptops in the period, Apple's share would have been 64,830 units, or some 20,000 more than in the same period in 2007.

Year on year growth for the computer maker stood at 52 per cent, according to Gartner, dwarfing the overall PC industry's growth rate of 9 per cent.

Rival analyst firm, IDC, broadly confirmed the trend. However, IDC associate market analyst Felipe Rego said Apple's share had actually reached 6.2 per cent for the first quarter of 2008.

According to IDC, Apple shipments grew 41 per cent on the same period in the previous year, while non-Apple shipments grew at just 13 per cent.

The growth for Apple shipments has put it within reach of overtaking some of the less popular Windows PC makers, according to Gartner statistics.

Toshiba and Lenovo's shipments were only marginally greater than Apple's, with the second quarter of 2008 showing that Toshiba and Lenovo controlled just 8 per cent each of the 1.2 million PCs, representing roughly 80,000 computers each.

However, the leading computer maker in Australia remains Hewlett-Packard, controlling 21 per cent of the market, followed by Dell with 15 per cent and Acer with 13 per cent.

IDC analyst Rego said he expected IDC's figures for desktop and laptop shipments to show a significant increase in the second quarter of 2008 as "low cost" laptops such as the Asus Eee PC started to have an impact on local shipments.

Gartner claimed that 2008 would see almost five million of the low-cost laptops sold globally, predicted 50 million units to be shipped by 2012. ZDNet Australia August 2008.

Windows 7 details in October  

In a posting on the newly launched Windows 7 blog, Microsoft has announced that details on the forthcoming product will be made available at the Professional Developers Conference in October.

"The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) on 27 October and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) the following week both represent the first venues where we will provide in-depth technical information about Windows 7," Windows engineering boss Steven Sinofsky and Windows Core operating system head Jon Devaan wrote in the posting on Thursday.

"This blog will provide context over the next 2+ months with regular posts about the behind the scenes development of the release and continue through the release of the product."

Microsoft had already said Windows 7 would be on the PDC docket in some manner.

Sinofsky acknowledged that Microsoft continued to say less than many people would like, but repeated his standard line that the company doesn't want to share details until they have reached a certain level of concreteness.

In an interview with ZDNet.com.au sister site, CNET News.com, in May, Sinofsky did disclose a few details: namely that it would use the same driver model and basic kernel approach as Windows Vista and that the company wanted the whole thing on the market by January 2010, three years after the mainstream release of Windows Vista.

Microsoft also showed in May a glimpse at a new multi-touch interface that will be part of Windows 7.

Sinofsky suggested that the company wants to be more open at some point as it tries to create a product that serves the needs of a customer base as broad as that of Windows.

"We strongly believe that success for Windows 7 includes an open and honest, and two-way, discussion about how we balance all of these interests and deliver software on the scale of Windows," he wrote. "We promise and will deliver such a dialogue with this blog."

Microsoft has also said it is engaging much earlier and deeper with computer makers as part of the Windows 7 design process, an approach which so far has received a positive response from PC manufacturers. "It's like night and day," one PC company executive told CNET News.com. ZDNet Australia August 2008.

Quotes of the Day  

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - ), Clarke's first law

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)

Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative. Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - 2007), "Cold Turkey", In These Times, May 10, 2004

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. George Orwell (1903 - 1950), "Politics and the English Language", 1946

Brought to you by The Quotations Page

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