These appliances will allow companies to take advantage of the “private cloud”, with which they run their own applications and storing them in their own data centers. This differs from the “public cloud”, in which the applications are on servers in third-party data centers.

Potential customers are expected to be larger businesses with scalable enterprise server needs. The first in line is the auction super site Ebay.com. The Azure software itself, however, will be more widely available. Microsoft is joining numerous other big IT companies that are now offering cloud services, including IBM, Google, and Amazon.

Source: The China Post
Photo: Flickr

This isn’t the company’s first foray into the anti-cybersquatting world. It released an add-on for Internet Explorer in 2005 called Typo-Patrol that blocks domain typos.

According to Microsoft, some 40% to 70% of typo domains are parked with six top domain parking services. Going after thousands of domain owners to enforce a trademark is very difficult, but going after a handful of advertising companies isn’t. Some day, the domain parking services will likely feel Microsoft’s building wrath.

What does this mean for you? You should install the preview version to make sure your site is compatible with the browser. Although I’m personally a fan of Firefox and Chrome, most web users browse with IE, so it’s important that your site work flawlessly in Microsoft’s browser.

Photo | Flickr

In what will undoubtedly send ripples through the Web, IBM has announced that Mozilla Firefox will be its new official browser. All 400,000 IBM employees are expected to make the switch on their desktops and laptops. IBM believes Firefox is “enterprise ready”, and as more of their products are sold as web applications and cloud services, one can safely assume that IBM will recommend Firefox to their customers.

Since its creation, Firefox has gradually chipped away at the large browser market share held by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Over the past year, however, Google’s Chrome browser has stolen some of the spotlight. This move by IBM will certainly give Firefox a boost. For web hosting providers that use IBM’s services, it will make sense to use Firefox, if IBM optimizes their applications with the open source browser in mind.

Source: CNET
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Answer: ASP.Net is the official successor to the ASP (Active Server Pages) scripting language. Rather than being a simple scripting language, ASP.Net is a web application framework that combines the Microsoft .Net Framework technology with scripting languages and other non-scripting languages.

ASP.Net is released with the .Net Framework and allows web developers to build dynamic websites, web applications, and web services. It features an event-based programming model and can utilize a variety of programming languages, including C#, J#, and VB.Net.

This Common Language Runtime allows programmers to use any language supported by the .Net Framework. Windows server system administrators can install ASP.Net as part of the .Net installation, and developers can use Microsoft Visual Studio to develop dynamic websites with ASP.Net technology.

Microsoft describes Silverlight as:

“…a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET-based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to Web browsers running on Mac OS X and Windows.”

To put it in layman’s terms, Silverlight is Microsoft’s answer to Adobe Flash. As a direct competitor to Flash, Microsoft had big plans for Silverlight from the beginning. It can play animations, multimedia, videos, and be used for application development.

As a website owner or system administrator, you should be aware of Silverlight, but you may not have a good reason to use it at this time. First of all, while Microsoft says it is cross-platform, it is not available for Linux, BSD, and some mobile operating systems. There is a free version of it, called Moonlight, created by Novell, but it has always been a full version behind Microsoft’s and does not support the DRM video components that allow for features like Netflix “Watch Now” playback.

The second problem with Silverlight is that it simply does not have very widespread adoption. If you put Silverlight elements on your website, visitors will need to download the plugin (if it is even available on their operating system). This is bad enough with Adobe Flash, which some users block, but they may choose to not even bother to view your site if they have to download another plugin. While Silverlight may have some features that Flash does not, it is essentially just trading one closed format for another. You would better serve your community of users by adopting standards-based multimedia tools (such as html5 video).

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons

And if the expected completion date of spring 2011 is any indication, this will also be one of the fastest data center construction projects ever. Microsoft originally intended to build the project in West Des Moines in 2008, but halted construction because of the recession.

Microsoft’s decision to recommence building the plant is a good sign for the economy. Obviously Redmond thinks there will be more demand for technology in the near feature. The data center will create around 25 jobs that pay an average of $31.04 per hour in benefits and wages.

Source | Data Center Knowledge

It’s no surprise that the NAF agreed with Microsoft. The company further alleged that the registrant was using the name to sell Xbox-related goods, which Microsoft says were heavily advertised and sold in high volumes around the word. The registrant failed to respond to the complaint.

This is a big victory for Microsoft. A lot of companies have domain names containing product named followed by “online,” so the name xboxonline looks very legitimate. Its use by a third party likely confused many consumers.

Microsoft won a similar dispute with the NAF earlier this month involving 18 Xbox domains.

Photo | Flickr

Because of heavy tax incentives and cheap power, technology firms are flocking to Quincy. The town’s proximity to a hydroelectric dam means that electricity is only 1.9 cents per kilowatt hour. Compare this to 12 cents in the Silicon Valley.

Microsoft currently has a 470,000 square foot data center in the town and is looking to build another. One would never expect a town of 5,000 people to attract this kind of attention, but it looks like everything came together just right for Quincy.

Source | Data Center Knowledge
Photo | Flickr

At one time the only option was to download and install every browser, but since that is not even an option with multiple platforms, you would be forced to use virtual machines to test the plethora of operating systems. There is a relatively reasonable solution, however, called Browsershots.

Browsershots is a website that allows you to select the specific browsers and operating systems you want to test. Simply enter your site’s URL, check off the browsers to test, and click the submit button. It will take some time, depending on how many browsers you choose, but the site will queue your test and slowly churn out screenshots of your site on each platform/browser. You can then download the complete set of shots in a convenient zip file. Browsers include Firefox, Google Chrome, Iceweasel, Opera, Flock, MSIE, Safari, Konqueror, and many others.