Michael J. Ross writes "Two decades ago, Web usage was limited to a single individual (Sir Tim Berners-Lee) using the only browser in existence (WorldWideWeb) running on a single platform (a NeXT Computer). Nowadays, billions of people access the Web daily, with the ability to choose from over a dozen browsers running on desktop computers, laptops, and a variety of mobile devices, such as cell phones. The number of possible combinations is growing rapidly, and makes it increasingly difficult for Web designers and developers to craft their sites so as to be universally accessible. This is particularly true when accounting for Web users with physical and cognitive disabilities — especially if they do not have access to assistive technologies. The challenges and solutions for anyone creating an accessible website are addressed in Universal Design for Web Applications, authored by Wendy Chisholm and Matt May." Keep reading for the rest of Michael and Laura's review.

gkunene writes "Oracle expects Sun to contribute to its operating profit right away. To make that happen, Oracle may pull funding and staff from projects such as JavaFX, Project Looking Glass, and Project GlassFish."

The Register writes "Sun invited Oracle president Charles Phillips and chief corporate architect Edward Screven to an employee-only town hall this Wednesday, where they took questions on what's coming. They said they'd be 'crazy' to close Java, that Oracle 'needs' MySQL, and all Sun's processors look appealing. They hedged on OpenOffice — Phillips said he couldn't comment on any product line — and on Sun's work in high-performance computing. Screven made it pretty clear the Sun vision of cloud computing does not fit with Oracle's; Oracle sees itself as a provider of infrastructure like virtualization to make clouds, not a provider of hosted services. As for who's staying and who's getting cut at Sun: Phillips said Oracle needs Sun, but warned 'tough decisions' will be coming. Don't forget, this is the company that couriered pink slips to the PeopleSoft staff it cut following that acquisition."

viktor.91 writes "Sun Microsystems announced three new MySQL products: MySQL 5.4, MySQL Cluster 7.0 and MySQL Enterprise Partner Program for 'Remote DBA' service providers." which showed up in the firehose today next to Glyn Moody's submission where he writes "Michael Widenius, founder and original developer of MySQL, says that most of the leading coders for that project have either left Sun or will be leaving in the wake of Oracle's takeover. To ensure MySQL's survival, he wants to fork from the official version — using his company Monty Program Ab to create what he calls a MySQL "Fedora" project. This raises the larger question of who really owns a commercial open software application: the corporate copyright holders, or the community?"

Geon Lasli writes "Reporters caught up with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Moscow to get his take on Oracle's deal to buy Sun Microsystems for US$7.4 billion. Ballmer was at a loss for words: 'I need to think about it. I am very surprised.' According to a source, IBM hadn't given up on purchasing Sun and was blindsided by Oracle's move. I guess IBM must be regretting playing tough 2 weeks ago. Unknown to outsiders, Sun had probably found the Oracle lifeboat before they decided to pull the plug on the deal."

Microsoft's supposed open-source guru Sam Ramji has asked open-source vendors to focus on "value" instead of "cost" with respect to competition with Microsoft products. This is especially funny given the Redmond giant's recent "Apple Tax" message. "While I'm sure Ramji meant well, I'm equally certain that Microsoft would like nothing more than to not be reminded of how expensive its products can be compared with open-source solutions. After all, Microsoft was the company that turned the software industry on its head by introducing lower-cost solutions years ago to undermine the Unix businesses of IBM and Hewlett-Packard, and the database businesses of Oracle and IBM."

bruunb writes "Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt. 'We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle's earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle's non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,' said Oracle President Safra Catz."

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister believes Oracle is next in line to make a play for Sun now that IBM has withdrawn its offer. Dismissing server market arguments in favor of Cisco or Dell as suitors, McAllister suggests that MySQL, ZFS, DTrace, and Java make Sun an even better asset to Oracle than to IBM. MySQL as a complement to Oracle's existing database business would make sense, given Oracle's 2005 purchase of Innobase, and with 'the long history of Oracle databases on Solaris servers, it might actually see owning Solaris as an asset,' McAllister writes. But the 'crown jewel' of the deal would be Java. 'It's almost impossible to overestimate the importance of Java to Oracle. Java has become the backbone of Oracle's middleware strategy,' McAllister contends."

FreedomFighter writes "In a Cloud Standards breakthrough, the FSF is teaming up with major cloud computing vendors to form the Free and Open Cloud Alliance (FOCA), a trade marketing association supporting Free(TM) and Open Cloud Computing (FOCC). The new CloudLeft Public License (CPL) is based on the ideas that data wants to be Free(TM) and all your Cloud(TM) are belong to us. It closes the 'user data loophole' by requiring the release of not only the source code for a CloudLeft platform but also the data passing through it. This renders most security issues void while appropriately setting the users' expectation of privacy. 'In the past, I've said that "cloud" is complete gibberish, but while discussing fashion during my weekly squash game with Stallman he convinced me that this was a great opportunity.' said Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle. RMS, who previously said that 'cloud' is worse than stupidity was also pleased about the return of the advertising clause, requiring the use of the 'GNU/Cloud' name, as he is 'tired of haranguing the GNU/Linux community about this.' Full details will be available next Monday, including the first marketing and outreach program — 'FOCC: IT in 2009.'"

head_dunce writes "It seems that this economy has inspired a lot of businesses to move to Linux, with Red Hat posting profits that beat everyone's expectations. There's a dark side to being a highly profitable company in a down economy, though — now there are talks of Citigroup and Oracle wanting to buy Red Hat. For a while now, we've been watching Yahoo fend off Carl Icahn and Steve Ballmer so that they could stay independent, but the fight seems to be a huge distraction for Yahoo, with lots of energy (and money) invested. Will Red Hat stay independent? What potential buyer would make for a good parent company?"

bizwriter writes "Many large companies have been closely monitoring the Tafas v. Doll lawsuit over whether the US Patent and Trademark Office has the power to change the patent application process in significant ways, so as to restrict the scope of patents and the chances of getting one. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has finally spoken, with a split court ruling that the USPTO does have the necessary authority. The case stems from a court challenge to four new rules the USPTO put in place in 2007. A number of tech companies including Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Apple, and Intel have supported the rule changes, which would strengthen their positions and make it more difficult for small companies to create, protect, and bring to market disruptive technology. These companies didn't have it all their way, as the appeals court said that one of the four rules conflicts with existing patent law and sent the other three back to a lower court for further review. If the decision is sustained by a full review of all 12 Federal Circuit appeals judges, it could be a blow to biotech and pharmaceutical companies, which depend on being able to obtain large numbers of patents. Expect further appeals on this one, and for the only beneficiaries in the short run to be the lawyers."

cayenne8 writes "I want to experiment at home with setting up multiple VMs and installing sofware such as Oracle's RAC. While I'm most interested at this time with trying things with Linux and Xen, I'd also like to experiment with things such as VMWare and other applications (Yes, even maybe a windows 'box' in a VM). My main question is, what to try to get for hardware? While I have some money to spend, I don't want to, or need to, be laying out serious bread on server room class hardware. Are there some used boxes, say on eBay to look for? Are there any good solutions for new consumer level hardware that would be strong enough from someone like Dell? I'd be interested in maybe getting some bare bones boxes from NewEgg or TigerDirect even. What kind of box(es) would I need? Would a quad core type processor in one box be enough? Are there cheap blade servers out there I could get and wire up? Is there a relatively cheap shared disk setup I could buy or put together? I'd like to have something big and strong enough to do at least a 3 node Oracle RAC for an example, running ASM, and OCFS."

darthcamaro writes "For nearly three years, Oracle has had its own version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, claiming the two versions are essentially the same thing. But are they really? As it turns out, there are a few things on which Oracle and Red Hat do not see eye-to-eye, including file systems and virtualization. The article quotes Wim Coekaerts, Oracle's director of Linux engineering, saying, 'A lot of people think Oracle is doing Enterprise Linux as just basically a rip off of Red Hat but that's not what this is about. ... This is about a support program, and wanting to offer quality Linux OS support to customers that need it. The Linux distribution part is there just to make sure people can get a freely available Linux operating system that is fully supported.'"

stoolpigeon writes "My past as a DBA probably makes me a bit biased, but the reaction I've seen the most when a database application isn't performing as well as would be liked seems to focus on the database side of things. The search for a solution usually seems to center around tuning db parameters, the building (or removal) of indexes and, if the budget allows, throwing hardware at the problem. In their new work, Refactoring SQL Applications, Faroult and L'Hermite bring a much wider range of options to the table. There is a lot in this little book for the developer charged with fixing an existing application and I think a lot of good information that could save one from making a number of headache-inducing mistakes on a new application." Keep reading for the rest of JR's review.

theodp writes "Most of America's largest publicly traded corporations and Federal contractors — including those receiving billions of dollars from US taxpayers to finance their recovery — have set up offshore operations that could help them avoid paying US taxes, according to a GAO study released yesterday. Of the 100 largest public companies, 83 do business in tax-haven hot-spots like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the British Virgin Islands. The report found that Citigroup, a recipient of $45B in bailout funds so far, has set up 427 subsidiaries in tax-haven countries, including 91 in Luxembourg, 90 in the Cayman Islands, and 35 in the British Virgin Islands. Household names on the lists from the tech sector include Apple (1 tax haven subsidiary), Cisco (38), Dell (29), HP (14), Intel (6), IBM (10), Microsoft (8), Motorola (4), and Oracle (77)."

jazir1979 writes "ZDNet is reporting that Oracle has added code to the Linux kernel for ensuring data integrity. The code has been developed in partnership with Emulex and was recently accepted into the 2.6.27 kernel release." According to the article, "The code adds metadata to data at rest or in transit, to monitor whether that data has been corrupted. It helps make sure that I/O operations are valid by looking at that metadata — which acts as verification information — exchanged during data transmissions."

mantex writes "The title of this book combines two coded terms — 'Web 2.0' and 'The Enterprise' — for which read 'social networking software' and 'Big Business.' And the purpose is to show how the techniques and concepts behind Web 2.0 applications (blogs, wikis, tagging, RSS, and social bookmarking) can be used to encourage collaboration efforts in what was previously thought of as secretive, competitive businesses." Read on for the rest of Roy's review.

stoolpigeon writes "MySQL is frequently touted as the world's most widely used relational database management system. Many of the best known web applications and web sites use MySQL as their data repository. The popularity of MySQL has continued to grow while at the same time many were concerned by the lack of many features considered essential to a 'real' rdbms. Such naysayers have done little to impede the growth or development of MySQL. The first edition of MySQL in a Nutshell, published in 2005, gave users a handy reference to using MySQL. The second edition, published in 2008, covers many new features that MySQL fans proudly proclaim as an answer to all those critics clamoring for a better-rounded rdbms." Read below for the rest of JR's review.

Ponca City, We love you writes "The NY Times reports that H211 LLC, a company controlled by Google's top executives, including billionaire founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, appears to have added to its fleet a Dornier Alpha Jet, a light jet attack and advanced trainer aircraft manufactured by Dornier of Germany and Dassault-Breguet of France. The 1982 Alpha-Jet seats two and was originally used by European air forces, but is now being sold relatively cheaply to civilians. The jet has landing rights at Moffett Field, the NASA-operated airfield that is a stone's throw from the Google campus. It is not clear who exactly flies the fighter jet, although Google chief executive Eric Schmidt is an avid pilot. If the top Googlers indeed own the fighter jet, they would be following in the footsteps of Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, who has owned several aircraft, including fighter jets."

smooth wombat writes "An international spam ring with ties to Australia, New Zealand, China, India, and the US is in the process of being shut down. Finances of members in the US are being frozen using the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 while the FBI is pursuing criminal charges. The group sent spam advertising male enhancement herbs and other items using a botnet estimated at 35,000 computers, and able to send 10 billion emails per day. The Federal Trade Commission monitored the group's finances and found that they had cleared $400,000 in Visa charges in one month alone."