New Landmark's in IT

amitshah.in

2008-11-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

New site has been launched amitshah.in

This site has extremely good collections of Articles from various stream like PHP, MySQL, Health, Jainism etc. I have also added Latest News Feed from the various News Portals which helps you to stay connect with current affairs. Photo gallery is one of good section and its come from Picasa.

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PHP v NET

2008-06-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

Survey after survey continues to show the popularity of PHP over any other web based language for creating anything from the simplest single home page to complex ecommerce and enterprise solutions. Recent Netcraft surveys show PHP installations on more than twenty million (20,000,000) domains. This is by in front of the second place getter which is PERL.

So, what is it about PHP that makes it so popular and why is .NET (and other Microsoft languages), dragging the chain in server side languages. The .NET platform has many benefits, not the least of these is its speed, but webmasters the world over continue to push the PHP language to new hights of popularity.

PHP puts the "P" into what has now become popularly known as the LAMP Stack (Linux Apache MySQL PHP). With the Apache web server installed on more than half of the worlds web sites, there is really no rival for it. The Apache web server is freely downloadable, like all parts of the LAMP stack with PHP among them. PHP is easily compiled as an apache module and makes a sturdy compliment to it.

In comparison, Windows Vista comes with IIS installed freely for a single web site. Of course, you need to purchase a license for Vista before you can begin. A single server installation is rarely suitable for companies that have more than a single domain. At a minimum, most will favour registering several domains with different TLD's. This leads to requirement to puchase Windows Server, the price of which begins at approximagely USD$600.00.

Of course, the most common tasks asked of web languages these days involves database communications. Microsoft provide a limitted "express" version of their MS SQL Server for free, but most installation will require the full version which add further to the total cost of ownership.

Once again, open source projects bring a bevy of alternatives which are freely downloadable and not limitted. Among these the most popular is SUN Microsystems` MySQL database. MySQL has the benifit of being a truly cross platform application, with source code freely available and binary releases for Linux, OSX and Windows platforms, it is clearly a superior choice for many when selecting a platform to run their business or enterprise.

With the above information in mind, it is not too difficult to see that the choice of server side scripting is often not one of preference or suitablity, but one of finacial logistics. The total cost of ownership of running .NET on Windows, rather than PHP on the LAMP stack is considerable.

The most common problem encountered with .NET development is portability. The .NET model supports only Windows servers, thus making cross platform integration impossible. Should a better hosting opportunity arise on another platform, or you are forced to move to another, non-windows, platform, .NET will not function and the site owner is left with a choice of finding another Windows server, or re-write their site/application to support more open standards.

PHP on the other hand permits the site or application owner to move their code base between platforms with ease. The genuine cross platform compatibility of PHP allows developers the freedom to write code that can be run on any server supporting PHP, thus avoiding the technological lock-in incumbent of Windows and .NET. Using the same code base, PHP can be compiled and built on about 25 platforms, including most UNIXs, Windows(95/98/NT/2000) and Macs. PHP currently will load into Apache, IIS, AOLServer, Roxen and THTTPD and many other web servers. Alternatively, it can be run as a CGI module.

The technology lock-in that comes with .NET also brings with it increased cost of ownership, as previously outlined. This, in part, is due to the closed source nature of Windows and the .NET system, combined also with increased maintenance when compared to open source alternatives. PHP has been constantly the most the most popular apache scripting language according to SecuritySpace's Web Survey. This sort of popularity brings with it many more coders, thus reducing development costs at the outset as well as ongoing maintenance costs when additions are required.

Programming is programming, and many facets of programming transfer themselves across languages regardless of platform. System design and security issues have some universal traditions and taboos. Any sensible system design will make use of as many pre-existing components as possible, thus reducing development costs and development time. Invariably with .NET this means even more expenditure with the cost of each component being set by individual developers or by companies whose sole concern is to profit from .NET component development.

In stark contrast to this model, the PHP community and developers have vast repositories of classes and components freely available that cover many of the needs of most web applications.

From a security perspective, PHP is much more secure than the .NET platform when considering bugs versus fixes within the core code itself. This alone has seen sites such as facebook.com, yahoo.com, big-boards.com, gaiaonline.com, and digg.com, who all choose PHP as the preferred platform to base their enterprise on. Couple this with PHP's flexibility and speed-to-market and you can see why PHP is the choice of the web.

With the sort of market penetration that PHP has gained it is assured that it will be a strong contender for many years to come, whilst the Microsoft camp gets set to introduce yet another language to try to make up lost ground.

Rapid Prototyping

2007-07-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

Rapid prototyping is the automatic construction of physical objects using solid freeform fabrication. The first techniques for rapid prototyping became available in the 1980s and were used to produce models and prototype parts. Today, they are used for a much wider range of applications and are even used to manufacture production quality parts in relatively small numbers. Some sculptors use the technology to produce complex shapes for fine arts exhibitions.

Rapid prototyping takes virtual designs from computer aided design (CAD) or animation modeling software, transforms them into cross sections, still virtual, and then creates each cross section in physical space, one after the next until the model is finished. It is a WYSIWYG process where the virtual model and the physical model correspond almost identically.

In additive fabrication, the machine reads in data from a CAD drawing and lays down successive layers of liquid or powdered material, and in this way builds up the model from a series of cross sections. These layers, which correspond to the virtual cross section from the CAD model, are glued together or fused (often using a laser) automatically to create the final shape. The primary advantage to additive construction is its ability to create almost any geometry (excluding trapped negative volumes).

The standard interface between CAD software and rapid prototyping machines is the STL file format. The word "rapid" is relative: construction of a model with contemporary machines typically takes 3 to 72 hours, depending on machine type and model size. Used in micro technologies "rapid" is correct, the products made are ready very fast and the machines can build the parts in parallel.

Some solid freeform fabrication techniques use multiple materials in the course of constructing prototypes. In some cases, the material used for the final part has a high melting point for the finished product, while the material used for its support structure has a low melting point. After the model is completed, it is heated to the point where the support material melts away, leaving a functional plastic prototype. Although traditional injection molding is still cheaper for manufacturing plastic products, rapid prototyping may be used to produce finished goods in a single step.

There are currently several projects to improve rapid prototyping technology to the stage where a prototyping machine can manufacture a majority of its own component parts.[1][2] Of these the RepRap Project is probably the most advanced. The idea behind this is that a new machine can be almost entirely manufactured and assembled quite inexpensively from the same polymer filament feed stock that the rapid prototyping machine uses to make prototypes by the owner of an existing one. Such a 'self-replication' technique will considerably reduce the cost of prototyping machines in the future, and hence any objects they are capable of manufacturing.

Load balancing (computing)

2007-06-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

In computer networking, load balancing is a technique (usually performed by load balancers) to spread work between many computers, processes, hard disks or other resources in order to get optimal resource utilization and decrease computing time.

A load balancer can be used to increase the capacity of a server farm beyond that of a single server. It can also allow the service to continue even in the face of server down time due to server failure or server maintenance.

A load balancer consists of a virtual server (also referred to as vserver or VIP) which, in turn, consists of an IP address and port. This virtual server is bound to a number of physical services running on the physical servers in a server farm. These physical services contain the physical server's IP address and port. A client sends a request to the virtual server, which in turn selects a physical server in the server farm and directs this request to the selected physical server. Load balancers are sometimes referred to as "directors"; while originally a marketing name chosen by various companies, it also reflects the load balancer's role in managing connections between clients and servers.

Different virtual servers can be configured for different sets of physical services, such as TCP and UDP services in general. Protocol- or application-specific virtual servers that may be supported include HTTP, FTP, SSL, SSL BRIDGE, SSL TCP, NNTP, SIP, and DNS.

The load balancing methods (listed below) manage the selection of an appropriate physical server in a server farm. Load balancers also perform server monitoring of services in a web server farm. In case of failure of a service, the load balancer continues to perform load balancing across the remaining services that are UP. In case of failure of all the servers bound to a virtual server, requests may be sent to a backup virtual server (if configured) or optionally redirected to a configured URL. For example, a page on a local or remote server which provides information on the site maintenance or outage.

Among the server types that may be load balanced are:

Server farms
Caches
Firewalls
Intrusion detection systems
SSL offload or compression appliances
Content Inspection servers (such as anti-virus, anti-spam)

In Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) (also known as Global Traffic Management) the load balancer distributes load to a geographically distributed set of server farms based on health, server load or proximity.

Free Antivirus Detection and Removal Tools

2006-09-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

Software To Protect You From Viruses, Trojans, Worms and Other Malware

AVG
Here, you can get your free copy of the AVG 7.0 Anti-Virus System - AVG 7.0 Free Edition and you will be able to use it without any limitations for life of the product.

Avast Home Edition
avast! 4 Home Edition is a free antivirus software for home noncommercial use. It scans for viruses, worms and Trojans on disk, CDs, in E-mail, IM and P2P . Incremental updates of virus database (twice a week) are small, fast and reliable.

AntiVir Personal Edition
The AntiVir Personal Edition offers the effective protection against computer viruses for the individual and private use on a single PC-workstation.

Clam Antivirus
ClamWin is a Free Antivirus for Microsoft Windows NT/98/Me/2000/XP/2003. It provides a graphical user interface to the Clam AntiVirus scanning engine.

ScripTrap
ScripTrap traps scripts when they attempt to run on your computer and provides the option of blocking them or letting them continue to run. You can also check the intercepted script with your anti-virus program before you decide to run it or not.

Trend Micro Online Scan
Give your PC a FREE check-up! HouseCall is a demonstration of the power of Web-based technologies that Trend Micro is developing to make deployment and management of virus protection in corporate settings fast and easy.

McAfee Stinger Virus Removal Tool
Stinger is a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but rather a tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with an infected system.

Symantec Virus Removal Tools
Symantec Security Response has developed tools to automatically conduct what would often amount to extensive and tedious manual removal tasks. Check this link for a list of virus removal tools.

BitDefender Virus Removal Tools
SOFTWIN provides you with a powerful set of Virus Cleaning Tools, designed to detect and remove viruses that infected your system. These applications are also valuable because of their size, making them easily downloadable even with a slow Internet connection. Check this link for a list of virus removal tools.

Top 10 Data Recovery Bloopers

2006-08-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

Truth, as the saying goes, is stranger than fiction. The following horror stories are true. The identities of those involved have been omitted, because what happened to them could happen to anyone.

1) It's the Simple Things That Matter

The client, a successful business organization, purchased a "killer" UNIX network system, and put 300+ workers in place to manage it. Backups were done daily. Unfortunately, no one thought to put in place a system to restore the data to.

2) In a Crisis, People Do Silly Things

The prime server in a large urban hospital's system crashed. When minor errors started occurring, system operators, instead of gathering data about the errors, tried anything and everything, including repeatedly invoking a controller function which erased the entire RAID array data.

3) When the Crisis Deepens, People Do Sillier Things

When the office of a civil engineering firm was devastated by floods, its owners sent 17 soaked disks from three RAID arrays to a data recovery lab in plastic bags. For some reason, someone had frozen the bags before shipping them. As the disks thawed, even more damage was done.

4) Buy Cheap, Pay Dearly

The organization bought an IBM system - but not from IBM. Then the system manager decided to configure the system uniquely, rather than following set procedures. When things went wrong with the system, it was next to impossible to recreate the configuration.

5) An Almost Perfect Plan

The company purchased and configured a high-end, expensive, and full-featured library for the company's system backups. Unfortunately, the backup library was placed right beside the primary system. When the primary system got fried, so too did the backup library.

6) The Truth, and Nothing But the Truth

After a data loss crisis, the company CEO and the IT staffer met with the data recovery team. No progress was made until the CEO was persuaded to leave the room. Then the IT staffer opened up, and solutions were developed.

7) Lights Are On, But No One's Home

A regional-wide ambulance monitoring system suffered a serious disk failure, only to discover that its automated backup hadn't run for fourteen months. A tape had jammed in the drive, but no one had noticed.

8) When Worlds Collide

The company's high-level IT executives purchased a "Cadillac" system, without knowing much about it. System implementation was left to a young and inexperienced IT team. When the crisis came, neither group could talk to the other about the system.

9) Hit Restore and All Will Be Well

After September's WTC attacks, the company's IT staff went across town to their backup system. They invoked Restore, and proceed to overwrite from the destroyed main system. Of course, all previous backups were lost.

10) People Are the Problem, Not Technology

Disk drives today are typically reliable - human beings aren't. A recent study found that approximately 15 percent of all unplanned downtime occurs because of human error.

AJAX - Executive Summary

2006-06-29T23:20:00.000-07:00

AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) is a software platform to build and deploy Rich Internet Applications.(RIA) Some RIA applications include Flash, Java Applets and ActiveX Controls.

Without these kinds of applications, the clients are thin and monolithic, as in a Legacy Architecture. RIA's put the smile back on the client machines, by maximizing their CPU utilization. You have had the scotch and the bourbon. Be ready to taste a cocktail now. Enter AJAX!

While AJAX represents a culmination of well known technologies like JavaScript, DOM, HTML and XML, it is not a language by itself. So what's all the hype about? Let me explain :

The biggest problem that we face in web applications is the time taken for reloading Web Pages. This depending on what you have put on the page and the speed of your connection, can range from average to slow. In the meanwhile, think of an application where the page is refreshed in an instant. Or if the page has to come from the server, it does so in the background. So no more hour glasses, so to say, you see. A big headache goes away.

Now, imagine having the ability to use the following browsers: IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera (7.0 and above) without worrying about the quirks of each one of them. Think of the page getting refreshed intelligently depending on the type of your internet connection (dial-up , broad band etc.) Move away from page based design to event controlled interface. Intelligent User interface, which minimizes the number of clicks, for a rich user experience. And all this, without having to procure a plug-in or an applet and based on Open Standards.

Sounds like a dream. Please welcome AJAX! Again.

A small detour : As per Greek Mythology, Ajax was the son of Telamon, the king of Salamis. He was a mighty hero of the Trojan War.

When Netscape introduced the word layer in 1998, Microsoft went ahead with its DOM (Document Object Model), which relied on the new method called document.all in JavaScript. As Netscape lost the war to Microsoft (in early 2000) , they were unable to push the layer idea further, to appeal to the DHTML band of workers. Although, some thing similar is available in a rudimentary form - called 'DIV' tags.

An Ajax application does away with the start and stop repetitive interaction of a client and a server. Now instead of loading a webpage, at a session start, the browser loads an Ajax engine made of Javascript, safely tucked away in a hidden frame. Ajax applications manipulate DOM to control the UI and backend requests which were made as minimal as possible. Thus one could do anything like manipulate web forms or search queries or modify a record etc. In effect the user's interaction with the application happens asynchronously, independent of server communication. The core of AJAX lies in a Browser based object named XMLHttpRequest which allows the browser to invoke remote calls back to the server without the need to reload the current page. Some of the functionality allows features like Drag and Drop, In Place Editing and Customized user views.

Now AJAX is not all 'rosy' as it seems. There are worries that AJAX may interfere with the Browser Back Button. Javascript has to be included manually in the scripts, sometimes using ActiveX (For IE 6.0 and below). People who would use AJAX would have to take care of network latency, through code. If this is not done well, there can be delays.

There are quite some number of AJAX IDE's like BackBase, JackBe and some others. Some of the tools have a visual workflow. Google uses AJAX in GoogleSuggest and GoogleMaps. Others have also started to get a feel of this powerful paradigm.

By 2010, it is expected that 60% of all applications on the web would be RIA's. Ajax will definitely be one of them, if not the leader. The others like XUL and XAML (part of Avalon - Microsoft) are also contenders.

Google Makes Calendar Publishable

2006-06-23T04:48:00.000-07:00

Google has updated its online Calendar service by making it possible for people to publish their calendars for others to see. Calendars created can be given a webpage or can be incorporated into websites or blogs.

Publishing a calendar could prove useful especially to event organizers or project leaders. Google provides examples of racing schedules and FIFA World Cup match ups.

Google Calendar

Bill Gates' Legacy: Microsoft's Top 10 Flops

2006-06-17T00:05:00.000-07:00

The Chairman isn't always right.

While Microsoft's outgoing Chief Software Architect Bill Gates has been ahead of the curve in predicting many technology trends, he also has backed some notorious flops.

Now that Gates officially has announced plans to relinquish his day-to-day company responsibilities by July 2008, we thought it would be a good time to look back on some of the less popular products and technologies championed by Gates during his 31-year Microsoft tenure.

Some of these, like Microsoft BOB, have gone to their graves. But not one to retreat from what might look like a losing battle, Gates has continued to beat the drum for more than a few of the items on our "flops" list.

In no particular order, here's are nine less-than-successful technologies Gates backed -- plus one he didn't that he should have but didn't – that will be part of his technology legacy.

1.Microsoft BOB (and son of BOB – Clippy): BOB, a product Microsoft released in 1995, was set to be the next-generation interface for Windows 3.1. BOB was Microsoft's first foray into making user interfaces more interactive and intuitive. (Clippy is the talking paperclip character that Microsoft users love to hate.) Interestingly, it was Bill Gates' wife, Melinda French Gates, who managed the BOB project.

2.Windows ME: Microsoft has rolled out a lot of versions of Windows since good old Windows 1.0 back in 1985. The most maligned of the bunch was Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows ME, which Microsoft introduced in 2000. ME was seen by many as a buggy upgrade with next-to-no compelling features. It was eclipsed rapidly by Windows XP, which Microsoft rolled out in 2001.

3.Tablet PC/Pen Computing/eBooks: While there is definitely a vociferous contingent of Tablet PC fans out there, the technology has been buggy and more expensive than expected. Many have been disappointed by the kinds of Tablet PC form factors -- including the new generation of Ultra-Mobile PCs (a k a "Origami") devices – that have made their way into the market. Microsoft recently decided to make Tablet PC functionality part of the base Windows Vista operating system, rather than to continue to champion it as a separate SKU.

4.SPOT watches: They're still big and dorky, even more than three years after the first Smart Personal Object Technology (SPOT) watch prototypes first hit the market. There still are no compelling apps or reasons to shell out hundreds of dollars for what are now known as "Smart watches."

5.Microsoft Money: If antitrust fears hadn't put the kibosh on Microsoft's plans to buy Intuit back in 1995, Microsoft might have been able to buy Quicken and turn its online banking product into a market leader. Instead, the Redmondians had to plod along with Microsoft Money, which seems to garner more wrath than praise from its users.

6.DOS 4.0: MS-DOS: No Microsoft look back can fail to mention the father of Windows, i.e., MS-DOS. Of all the QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) derivatives, it seems to be the 4.0 release that Microsoft historians recall as the buggiest nightmare. Released in 1988, MS-DOS 4.0 was based on IBM's code base, not Microsoft, according to the virtual Wikipedia history books.

7.Microsoft TV: Microsoft has taken several stabs at making a go of the digital TV space, to no avail. Anyone else remember "Microsoft Tiger," the company's video-on-demand project launched back in the early 1990s? The company's not throwing in the towel on this one, by any means. In fact, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently said he believed IPTV would become one of the key Microsoft stock and profit drivers in the not-too-distant future.

8.MSNBC partnership/Microsoft as a content player: Microsoft's partnership with NBC was never a smooth one. In December 2005, Microsoft basically pulled back from its NBC relationship. But that isn't stopping Microsoft from continuing its long-standing quest to be a content provider in its own right. The company is in the midst of hiring bloggers, TV crew members and other media-savvy types to build something known as the "MSN Media Network."

9.Live Meeting web conferencing software: I'm still waiting to be bowled over by the need for presence and other "always on" technologies. Microsoft Watch readers know I am no fan of Live Meeting. But when asking others for input on this list, I wasn't the only one who thought Microsoft's Web conferencing product, based on technology it bought from PlaceWare, has been a disaster. Microsoft isn't folding its conferencing tent and going home, however; in fact, execs are promising the next versions of Live Meeting are going to be even bigger and more intrusive. Can't wait!

10.No Microsoft Linux!: Microsoft could have and should have done its own version of Linux. It could have bought a Linux distro vendor or just christened some branch of Windows (with some Unix-compatibility add-ons) as Microsoft Linux. By doing this, Microsoft could have thrown a real monkey wrench into Linux companies' plans. Instead, Microsoft continues to spend lots of money, time and attention fighting open-source software on a whole host of fronts. They should have joined the camp, rather than obsessing on beating them.

GIS and Spatial Extensions with MySQL

2006-05-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

MySQL 4.1 introduces spatial functionality in MySQL. This article describes some of the uses of spatial extensions in a relational database, how it can be implemented in a relational database, what features are present in MySQL and some simple examples.

Often the spatial functions are called geographic information system (GIS) functions, because GIS applications are the most obvious use-case for the spatial functionality. The spatial functions can be used both to provide a means to organize GIS data together with more traditional types of data and to represent non-GIS data with a spatial attribute.

GIS applications then and now
A GIS (geographic information system) stores and looks up objects which have one or more spatial attributes, such as size and position, and is used to process such objects. A simple example would be a system that stores addresses in a town using geographic coordinates. If this rather static data was then combined with other information, such as the location of a taxi-cab, then this data could be used to find the closest cab to a certain location. Many GIS applications are very specialized, in areas such as the mapping of real-world objects, map creation and meteorology.

Among the many attributes of a general GIS is that the objects may have multiple dimensions, and that complex shapes are supported. Typically two-dimensional objects with nearly unlimited complexity need to be supported.

Another attribute of a general GIS is that it supports combining objects and looking for different types of overlaps, such as looking for points that are contained within a given geometrical object. Lastly, a GIS provides a means of organizing objects in layers, i.e. REGIONs inside DISTRICTs.

A good example of an application where GIS is of importance and which also has real-world implications is in the area of meteorology. When it comes to producing weather maps we see every day on the TV screen, meteorology is a complex science. Very advanced and high-powered IT systems that are concerned with the actual number-crunching are combined with large databases. The issue is not that data is not available, the issue is what data to use and how, and how the different types of data are matched. The data from the number-crunching systems is supplied in the form of large files with multi-dimensional arrays of prognosticated data. The issue now is, how can a specific data object be matched with another, and provide a relevant prognosis of the weather in the coming five days.

In other words, we have data covering at least three dimensions (two-dimensional geography plus a height of a measurement for example, maybe combined with a time dimension).
What is obvious from the above discussion is that a database that only works on simple data types, such as INTEGER or DECIMAL, will just not be good enough for this type of application. The geographical shapes might be any type of polygon that then needs to be matched with some other object, i.e. what is the total area of two objects (which is not necessarily the sum of the areas of the two objects, as they might overlap).

The traditional solution to all this has been to use specialized database systems that use proprietary spatial indexing, and proprietary interfaces. These systems are complex though, and not only that, any GIS stores some non-GIS data (for example, a meteorological database might store a temperature measurement at a given geographical location, height and time as a DECIMAL). And for non-GIS data, SQL has become the standard. As applications for GIS have expanded beyond what goes on in labs and high-powered scientific institutions and are found in more traditional applications, such a taxicab scheduling systems, the need for a more standardized solution has exploded. Another factor here is the availability of inexpensive and easy to use GPS systems which may be combined with mobile communication systems, so that getting a real-time position from, a taxi-cab, a ship on the sea or a police car is no longer complex or expensive.

OpenGIS - Linking SQL with GIS functionality
The desire to combine SQL with GIS was initially driven by the developers of GIS applications desiring to expand into other areas, more than by SQL database vendors getting into the GIS market.

The driving organization behind opening up GIS to a broader market and making GIS technologies available everywhere the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). OGC has been around for about 10 years and is a non-profit organization that works on many areas of GIS and provides specifications of interoperability with many other standards. One such standard that OGC has provided is a specification for interoperability SQL databases.

This specification, in short, defines extensions to a SQL based relational database to allow for GIS objects and operations. There are four important areas here:

Data types. There needs to be data types to store the GIS information. This is best illustrated with an example, a POINT in a 2-dimensional system.
Operations. There must be additional operators to support the management of multi-dimensional objects, again, this is best illustrated with an example, a function that computes the AREA of a polygon of any shape.
The ability to input and output GIS data. To make systems interoperable, OGC has specified how contents of GIS objects are represented in binary and text format.
Indexing of spatial data. To use the different operators, some means of indexing of GIS data is needed, or in technical terms, spatial indexing.

In addition to the above, there is also a need for GIS metadata, and in some cases for using different coordinate systems. MySQL currently supports a planar coordinate system. The other major coordinate system in use is the geocentric one, i.e. a coordinate system on the Earth's surface, which is not yet supported by MySQL.

Non-GIS use for MySQL spatial extensions
There are uses for spatial extensions outside of the pure GIS world. Spatial data is not limited to maps or to the Earth's geography. The definition of spatial data and operations is wide, and even though MySQL follows the OpenGIS specification to a large extent, this specification does not limit the use of spatial data to GIS applications.

Any type of data that has more than one dimension can be treated as a spatial entity. The specification does not limit the axis on the coordinate system to any particular unit, such as inches or centimeters, and each axis does not necessarily have to represent the same unit: they are just numbers. Of course, certain functionality assumes that the X and Y axis have similar properties, such as the Area() function.

Fact is, a lot of real-world data has two dimensions if we look at it this way, in particular if we assume that one dimension is a date. For example we could store the maximum and minimum price for a stock as a POINT, where the X axis is the date and the Y axis is the price. We can then use the spatial functions to check for overlaps and intersections with other stocks.

The OpenGIS® Simple Features specifications for SQL
This specification is what is used as the ground for almost all implementations of GIS-functions within an SQL-based relational database. This standard defines the data types, operations, input and output format, functions and much more. This is the standard that is followed by almost all SQL databases with spatial extensions, including MySQL.

MySQL GIS Datatypes (abstract types in gray)
The data types start from the most generic at the top of the hierarchy, GEOMETRY, to a number of specific types, such as POINT and LINESTRING. Some of the data types are "abstract" in the sense that you cannot create objects of this type, such as the GEOMETRY type. This does not mean that you cannot have a column of the type GEOMETRY, just that you cannot have any value in that column of the type GEOMETRY, but you can have values of any other spatial type in that column. Among the abstract object types, only GEOMETRY can be used as a column type.

Among the functions that can be performed on spatial objects are functions that evaluate the proximity of objects, such as Overlap(), functions that combine two spatial objects to create another spatial object, such as Envelope() and functions that perform conversion to and from text and binary formats, such as AsText() and GeomFromText(). As any spatial object can be treated as a GEOMETRY object, any function that operate on a GEOMETRY can operate on any other type of spatial object, such as a POINT, which doesn't necessarily mean that this operation always is meaningful.

The specification includes the definition of two formats for external representation of spatial data, WKB (Well Known Binary) and WKT (Well Known Text). This allows data to be exported and imported in binary and text formats. To complement these formats, there are functions that convert between the WKB and WKT formats and all of the spatial data types.

Spatial Indexing
Spatial data may be indexed, just like other data in MySQL. To make this effective, a special type of indexing is used for spatial data called R-tree ("R" stands for Region) indexing. The involves organizing the minimum bounding rectangle (MBR) of the spatial objects in a tree structure that is then used by the different spatial functions. There are a few variations of R-tree indexing, MySQL uses R-trees with quadratic splitting, which is one of the standard methods of building an R-tree index.

An R-tree index is similar to a B+-tree in many ways, and organizes the indexed nodes in a hierarchy where the nodes in the index represent the MBR of the objects in the node. The leaf nodes in the index contain references to the row that contain the data, just like a B+-tree index.

Current Spatial features in MySQL
In the current implementation of spatial extensions in MySQL, parts of the OpenGIS Simple Features have been left out. Among these are:

Functions - Some functions are missing, among them some that deal with creating new spatial data values from existing ones, such as Union() (not to be confused with the SQL UNION operator) and Intersection() (not to be confused with the Intersect() spatial function).
GIS Metadata - The OpenGIS Simple Feature specification defines certain metadata tables for GIS data.
SRID - A Spatial Reference Identifier (SRID) defines the properties of the coordinate system. MySQL stores the SRID of any spatial objects and it can be extracted, but it is not used and the coordinate system is always supposed to be planar.

Except the above, all of the features of the OpenGIS Simple Features specification are included in MySQL 4.1 Spatial Extensions, support for the missing features will be added in future MySQL versions.

Oracle accidentally releases exploit code

2006-04-15T00:43:00.000-07:00

Oracle appears to have accidentally released details about an unpatched security vulnerability in its database software, including sample code that could be used to exploit the problem. Details of the vulnerability were published last Thursday in a note that was briefly posted to Oracle's Metalink customer support portal.

The security community learned of the vulnerability early Monday when researcher Alexander Kornbrust posted an advisory on the situation to the Full Disclosure mailing list. Oracle removed the information on Friday, after being informed of the security risks associated with the Metalink note, said Kornbrust, a business director at Red-Database-Security, in Neunkirchen, Germany.

Oracle is planning to address the matter, the company said Monday. "Oracle is aware of information that was posted to Full Disclosure regarding a vulnerability in Oracle Database 9i and Oracle Database 10g. We plan to provide customers a patch that addresses this vulnerability in a future quarterly Critical Patch Update," a company spokeswoman said Monday.

The database vendor's next set of security patches is due on April 18.

In order to exploit the problem, attackers would first need to have an account on the Oracle database, making this problem unlikely to be exploited via the Web. However, by creating specially crafted queries, database users who would normally only be able to read data would be able to change the underlying data.

The vulnerability affects Oracle's database version 9.2.0.0 to 10.2.0.3 running on any operating system.

Kornbrust has published a number of work-arounds for the problem, which he does not believe will be patched in Oracle's April security updates. These work-arounds can be found at http://www.red-database-security.com/advisory/oracle_modify_data_via_views.html.

The security researcher said he decided to go public with the information on the vulnerability because enough people had already seen Oracle's Metalink note that it posed a risk for Oracle users.

It is ironic that the original source of this unpatched exploit, called a 0day in hacker parlance, was Oracle itself, given Oracle's past criticism of researchers who disclose such vulnerabilities, Kornbrust said. "This time they can't blame security researchers," he said.

Oracle had no comment on how it came to release this sensitive information, but Kornbrust speculated that it was due to a mistake by their support organization. "It looks to me like someone from Oracle support found information about this bug and he was not aware that it was a security issue," he said. "I think the poor guy who published this information did this in context of helping people."

Apple Stock up on Windows-based Macs

2006-04-05T23:30:00.001-07:00

Apple Computer Inc. shares shot up in afternoon trading on Wednesday after the company unveiled software that allows users to run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system on Apple computers -- a move that Wall Street believes will help Apple grow market share.

It's not a new concept -- software that purportedly did roughly the same thing as Apple's new "Boot Camp" program has been available for years, but many have perceived it as sluggish and bug-filled. Apple's decision to embrace Windows, on the other hand, is believed to be a major game changing event.

Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore, who has a "Buy" rating on Apple's stock, said the computer maker is likely to grow market share, which could result in an earnings upside.

"We believe today's announcement sets the stage for further share gains by Apple," Whitmore wrote in a note. "Our estimates suggest that each point of share Apple takes in the overall personal computer (PC) market translates into a positive 25 cents per share to our fiscal year estimates."

American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu, who also has a "Buy" rating on the stock, speculated that Microsoft's forthcoming new operating system, Vista, will be supported on a Mac and said the announcement is a big deal that could be a "significant game changer."

Shares of Apple, which have traded between $33.11 and $86.40 over the last year, were up $4.63, or 7.6 percent, at $65.80 in afternoon trading, while shares of PC maker Dell, which could potentially lose from Apple's announcement, were down 9 cents at $29.76. Both stocks trade on the Nasdaq.

How AMD made Rs 10,000 PC possible

2005-12-07T02:49:00.000-08:00

Intel is a brand synonymous with microprocessors, the little chips that give computers the power to process data. And in technology markets with millions of independent consumers, if brand power and technical power get into a mutual reinforcement loop, it is quite some force. That's the 'Intel inside' story.

AMD, short for Advanced Micro Devices, is a brand synonymous with. . . nothing particularly, though it is a brand of chips to rival Intel's. And in an Indian market with millions of independent consumers, increasing numbers have been evaluating AMD's proposition with an independent mind. And they're beginning to bite in. Could this become an "AMD insight" story? Read on.

End of Intelopoly

The US-based AMD made its first tentative foray into India four years ago. And according to IDC data, it put its chips in as many as 15 per cent of the 3.5 million computers sold in 2004-05 in India (that includes desktop PCs, servers and laptops). The winning combination?

Aggressive pricing, technological innovation and quick expansion of distribution channels. Delhi-based Skoch Consulting, which tracks the market, expects AMD to have at least a fifth of the market by 2006-07 -- despite rearguard action from Intel to protect its flanks.

Ajay Marathe, president, AMD India, wants a bigger slice than that. "Our target is to grow two to three times higher than the overall market growth rate. We are looking at growing at 70-100 per cent, annually." That could mean over a quarter of the market by 2006-07.

Should Intel worry? AMD has been rapidly expanding its offer basket to include almost everything Intel offers. In fact, having secured its presence in regular computers, AMD is now aiming at the lucrative server market, just 76,000 units strong but worth $295 million last year. AMD wants a 30-per cent share of this segment.

For his part, Surendra Arora, director, Intel India, does not want to display any more concern than necessary. "Let the customer judge the value of Intel," he says.

In some ways, the AMD challenge in India is a reflection of the global market scenario, where the challenger has already grabbed over 40 per cent of the consumer desktop market and around 8 per cent of the server space (and has sued Intel in the US for the alleged use of strongarm tactics to keep PC makers in exclusive loyalty). But the Indian experience is not quite the same.

Price Value Flux

So what has AMD done in India? It has stolen the lead in taking the customer up the power curve. The technical story focuses on AMD's innovation in offering a 64-bit processor at roughly the same price of Intel's 32-bit alternative.

For the uninitiated, most PCs are loaded with 32-bit chips, which means they can process 32 bits of data every second. AMD's 64 bit offering is not only four times faster, it offers more Random Access Memory (RAM), the instant memory that is needed to perform various tasks while the computer is on.

That's part of a twofold strategy, says Marathe. First, score a technological edge with 64-bit chips, segment by segment (desktops in 2001, servers in 2003 and laptops in 2005), thus upstaging Intel's upgradation curve (it launched desktop 64-bit chips only in March, and for servers only last month, and has left laptops unattended).

And then, turn up the knob on the sales pitch. Its advice to customers has been simple: why opt for weak old technology when extra power is already within reach?

For the customer willing to listen to a story of finer algebraic detail, AMD has its "dual core technology" to talk about. This offers virtually two processors in one, which, working in conjunction, delivers more than twice the performance.

The brand's popular image, however, continues to be that of a price warrior. Chip to chip, AMD sells at list prices about 20-30 per cent lower than Intel, enabling PC makers to meet lower price points in the Indian market.

Listen to Ravi Pradhan, country manager, India, Via Technologies India, part of a Taiwan-based firm that has a tie-up with AMD to bundle processors with its chipsets. "Of course they're cheaper," he says, "without compromising processing abilities, and that is why many PC makers are using AMD chips to offer PCs at Rs 10,000."

The idea of this price point, the magic figure of Rs 10,000, is to touch off an explosion in volumes. To this end, AMD is also working with HCL Infosystems.

"Nobody is making money at this price," admits Marathe, "as all the vendors have reduced their prices to make it possible. But if you get demand of 5 million units, you can make money."

This is part of the "light computer" vision of networking the country with cheap lightly-loaded machines. These would be machines that are just adequate for internet surfing, but which can also draw on remotely located heavy resources if needed.

Selling cheap machines requires deeper market penetration, and for this, AMD intends doubling its channel partners to 6,000 (across 300 cities instead of the current 150) within the next 12 months -- which it claims would put it on par with Intel's distribution.

Intel's Composure

Intel, meanwhile, has not lapsed into complacency. "We will do everything to win back customers we might have lost," vows Arora, who remains alert to any possible threat to Intel's long-running dominance.

Among Intel's big starting advantages has been the calibration of its technology to suit the software made by Microsoft for Windows, the standard man-machine user interface (hence the term "Wintel monopoly"). Intel and Microsoft tend to operate in alliance, taking customers up the technology upgradation curve.

So, argue Intel supporters, what's the point of a 64-bit machine so long before Windows Vista comes out (scheduled next year) to make appropriate use of 64 bit processing? Says Intel's Arora, "We come out with products when the market is ready."

At the market's lower end, Intel prefers to talk of monthly-outgo affordability rather than product price points. Says Arora, "We are not looking at it as a Rs 10,000 PC, but as a question of affordability: how much does he have to pay per month as an EMI to own a PC?"

Through its 'My First Intel' scheme, the company has tied up with public sector banks to offer loans at rates as low as Rs 300 a month. It is working out deals for bundled offerings too. So price is not a very potent weapon in AMD's arsenal after all.

Moreover, as Skoch's CEO Sameer Kochhar sees it, the price edge gets blunt as you go from the Rs 10,000 level to mid-range PCs for around Rs 25,000, where a saving of about Rs 1,000 does not easily get a switch from Intel to AMD. And the price-point game can drain AMD of cash.

"They are in the bleeding edge of the market," says Kochhar, "those who want to make inexpensive machines buy AMD, they have a lead there but you don't make money. Their challenge is to move up the value chain."

But in the server market, AMD is finding the going steep, according to market watchers. Intel's relationships with corporate and government bodies are proving quite durable, though government contracts no longer specify Intel supplies.

So, realistically speaking, can AMD pose more than a perfunctory challenge to Intel?

Marathe is convinced it can. He explains the server segment's poor showing so far, for example, as an issue of selling a product suited to Indian market peculiarities. The machines used in India as network servers tend to be upgraded desktops.

"We did not have a product here earlier. Intel was selling Pentium 4 in this market. But now we have introduced the Optron 100, which is a server-grade processor, and reliable -- with a price tag similar to a desktop's."

While Intel has good reason not to be daunted by AMD, perhaps the most interesting part of the story lies ahead.

As a brand, AMD has been uncertain of itself. Now it is slowly shedding its popularly held image as a price warrior in favour of a nicely differentiated value proposition. This should be interesting to watch. But can it combine a genuine market insight with its "dual core" advantage to set the mutual reinforcement loop into motion?

Ruby New OOP Language.....

2005-11-18T23:20:00.000-08:00

Check out new Object Oriented Language Ruby.

http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020101.html

Automated IM Worm Is Inevitable

2005-11-03T22:23:00.000-08:00

The sudden appearance of a rootkit file in a spyware-laden IM worm attack has set off new fears that malicious hackers are sophisticated enough to launch a fully automated worm attack against instant messaging networks.

In the most recent attack aimed at users of America Online Inc.'s AIM network, the "lockx.exe" rootkit file was bundled with a new variant of the W32/Sdbot Trojan to create a nasty mix of hidden malware. This is the first detection of SDBot squirming through IM chat windows, and the addition of a rootkit program is causing raised eyebrows among security researchers and worm watchers. "The situation is ripe for a fully automated worm to cause some serious damage," said Jose Nazario, senior software engineer at Arbor Networks Inc., a network security firm based in Lexington, Mass.

Nazario, a worm researcher and author who tracks malicious activity on the Worm Blog, said the appearance of SDBot in an IM attack highlights a rapidly emerging trend for malware: Bootstrap onto the system, download a number of tools including a rootkit and spyware, use an IRC network to control the botnet, and continue propagating. "I'm really surprised we haven't seen the fully automated worm on these IM networks. To me, it's begging to happen," Nazario said in an interview with Ziff Davis Internet News. "Pretty soon, someone will find a way to package one of these attacks with an unpatched vulnerability to cause some real problems." Nazario said the IM worm writers have mastered the art of commandeering a user's buddy list to spread the malware bundles via URLs that must be clicked.

"Once we start seeing AIM or MSN Messenger exploits packaged into these, we'll see a fully automated IM worm. But, so far that hasn't yet happened on a large scale, and I don't know why. I think it's only a matter of time before some enterprising malware author decides to break down that barrier," Nazario added. Chris Boyd, who broke the SDBot code and discovered the hidden rootkit for FaceTime Communications Inc., echoed Nazario's fears.

"Before long, someone will come up with something capable of doing massive damage. There are some pretty horrific rootkits out there at the moment that are completely undetectable. We're now seeing them all coming together and it's not looking good," said Boyd, a well-known security researcher who uses the "paperghost" moniker. "I've noticed over the past six months or so, the malware writers are moving away from the standard Web page drive-bys and finding new avenues to deliver the nasties. We've seen it with BitTorrent and we're seeing it more and more with IM," Boyd added. Boyd said he believes the inclusion of a rootkit file in the spyware bundle was a deliberate "sleight-of-hand tactic" to drop the backdoor Trojan on compromised machines. "It's a very slick move. While we're all complaining about the pop-ups and spyware, no one notices the nasty rootkit that puts your entire computer in the hands of someone on IRC," he added.

Boyd said the "lockx.exe" rootkit has been programmed to connect to an IRC [Inter Relay Chat] server to listen for commands from a remote attacker.

The Windows kernel rootkit can also be used to hide logins, processes, files, and logs. It may include software to intercept data from terminals, network connections, and the keyboard. Earlier this year, Microsoft Corp. became so worried that its MSN Messenger network could be used in an automated worm attack, it pushed out patched versions of the software as a mandatory update.

At the time, exploit code that could be used in widespread attack was circulating on underground Web sites just 24 hours after Microsoft released the software patch. Tyler Wells, senior director of engineering for FaceTime Communications Inc., said buffer overflows in IM applications are a recipe for disaster. "We've already seen documentation for some serious code-execution vulnerabilities in IM applications. If you put it all together, you'll see we're not that far away from an automated IM attack where infections don't require the user to click on anything," Wells said.

"The attackers will start looking for exploits within the IM itself. Now we're seeing the IM clients become more than just a text chat tool. AIM now has the ability to load an image on top of the buddy list and play music without a click. All the messaging clients today are bundling a lot of different applications like VOIP, file transfer, image sharing, Internet radio. Those add-ins all have their own security concerns," Wells said in an interview. "When you bundle third-party functionality into the program, you expand the client footprint, but you're also in inheriting all the security problems," he added.

Arbor Networks' Nazario said there has been detailed research work done to show that an automated IM worm could spread over IM rapidly. "In the worst case scenario, research has shown that all vulnerable clients online at a time could get infected in a matter of seconds." "Whether we see that in practice is debate. But the results of simulations and analysis were striking. If someone is able to operationalize a worm that propagates without user intervention, we would be in for a very massive attack," Nazario said.

"A fully automated, rampant IM worm can happen at any time. I'm actually very surprised it's not out there yet. It's a very attractive way to drop malware behind an enterprise security system quickly and efficiently," he added.

Google Expected to Target Phone Search

2005-10-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

What's the next big killer app from search companies? Quickly and easily searching telephone calls for a particular word or phrase—in essence, to Google your calls—is a likely candidate. And it isn't as far off as it might seem.

In the past two years, a number of customer service calling center operators for hire, some with thousands of employees working at the phones, have invested in the technology to identify inept operators and other measures of quality control.
While that's far from a mainstream scenario, these pioneering commercial applications are nonetheless an important first step toward a future in which phone calls will be among the Web pages available by visiting Google, Yahoo and other search engines.

Indeed, Ferris Research analyst Richi Jennings said, leading search engine giants like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN could introduce rudimentary searchable voice services right now.

"The big three of search could all do a good enough job of it to be of some value," Jennings said. "I do see adding into the search universe the ability to search what you said in phone calls." While acknowledging such a feature is conceivable, and in some cases being worked on, executives from major search companies cautioned during recent interviews that it will be a long, slow slog to get there, and each will have to battle any number of factors beyond each companies' control.

"We are definitely evaluating whether to make available a feature like searching voice calls and voice mail and other advanced voice features," said Yahoo spokesperson Terrell Karlsten.

Analysts envision searchable voice applications that would help companies more easily comply with records-intensive Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance mandates. More mainstream applications would turn home phone call history into a searchable database to find telephone numbers, names, addresses or even documenting the type of calls someone makes.

Some analysts even believe phone calls will be listed among the results from using search engines design to mine information stored on someone's computer.
One reason searchable voice applications now appears on technology's horizon is because of the growing consumer interest in VOIP (voice over IP), which is freely available software that lets someone make phone calls using his or her Internet connection.

By treating the phone calls just like a Web page, e-mail or Instant Message, VOIP service providers create yet another Internet-based application for search engines to capture, archive and search.
VOIP calls also makes the transcribing process involved in a searchable voice feature much easier because of their revolutionary technology behind them.

The calls are digitized, and then packaged in routing instructions known as the IP, which is the most common way for machines of all kinds to communicate.
It was IP that, in essence, created the common language that Google and other search engines rely on.

For now, though, there are only a relatively few number of VOIP users—an estimated 5 million in the United States, according to several estimates.
Yet VOIP is clearly on the minds of each of the top search companies, and even companies like eBay that seem an unlikely choice to become a telephone operator.

On Aug. 9, Yahoo formally unveiled Yahoo Messenger with Voice, a version of Yahoo's Instant Messager that improves upon the call's sound quality.
Microsoft this week said it had acquired San Francisco-based Internet phone company Teleo.

Future versions of MSN Messenger, Microsoft's instant messaging application, will use Teleo's technology in order to let users make calls from PCs to land-line or mobile phones.

Also, VOIP has a rosy future, according to some analysts. VOIP lines are expected to grow significantly to 25 million in the next two years, or about 20 percent of the total number of traditional home phone lines in the United States.
Another positive sign for searchable voice is that speech recognition, which plays a critical role in the process, is improving and becoming less expensive. Once just able to spot a particular word, companies including U.K.-based Autonomy, a call center specialist, has developed technology to recognize spoken phrases, a quantum leap in effectiveness.

The company also recently purchased Irving, Texas-based eTalk, a provider of call center technology. The combination will hasten the adoption of searchable voice, believes eTalk marketing director Kathy Kuehne.

Baby steps are being taken when it comes to archiving all those calls into a searchable database, for now a big investment in machines and manpower.
It's such a daunting task that Google isn't archiving the PC-to-PC phone calls capable among users of Google's relatively new GoogleTalk, its instant Messaging application. (IM is predominantly designed to be a stripped-down version of e-mail).

Yahoo, Microsoft to Link IM Networks

2005-10-20T04:48:00.000-07:00

Yahoo and Microsoft are linking up their IM networks to allow MSN and Yahoo Messenger users to communicate across the two platforms, creating a global network of more than 275 million strong.

The agreement brings actual federated IM to the industry after years of mostly talk about the prospect. During a press conference today, the companies said being able to instant message between IM communities is one of the features most requested by MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger users.

The deal means that, in addition to exchanging instant messages, consumers from both communities can see if friends are online or not, swap emoticons and generally communicate without being on the same IM network. Yahoo and Microsoft said they would launch the interconnectivity capabilities between MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger in the second quarter of 2006.

The two companies will look into providing more enhanced features, such as PC-to-PC VoIP, once they get the new IM network servers up and running, which will be based on the SIMPLE protcol. For the time being, IM enhancements will focus on PC-to-PC communications, so Yahoo's recent acquisition of Dialpad Communications technology, picked up in part for its PC-to-Phone service, won't likely fall under that category.

Officials said complexity is the main reason they are not incorporating more features into the interoperable IM service next year. SIMPLE, while a proven technology, has not been scaled to the extent Yahoo and Microsoft want to deliver, they said.
"This is good for consumers; it's just a lot harder to do when you're flying an airplane as fast as these companies are flying and you want to change the engine at the same time," said Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo COO, in a press conference. "We have to get it right."

The combination of MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger networks could put a serious competitive dent in AOL's dominance in the IM world -- or bring the company closer to working out a federated IM deal with the other IM providers. Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL run the three largest IM networks in the world.
A recent study by research firm the Radicati Group reports some 867 million IM accounts worldwide today, a number expected to grow to 1.2 billion accounts in 2009. Public IM networks, such as AIM, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger, primarily make up those numbers.

While Internet citizens have long called for interoperability between the top three, there has been no real serious work undertaken to let an MSN Messenger user talk to an AIM user or Yahoo Messenger user. Every once in a while, two of the three would come to the table but nothing ever came of those meetings.

Blake Irving, MSN communications services and member platform group corporate vice president, would not say whether recent talks with AOL touched on IM interoperability. Even if AOL and Microsoft were to come to some kind of agreement over federated IM, they probably wouldn't be able to do anything about it right now, he said in the press conference.

"The complexity of a deal like [Yahoo and Microsoft] and trying to execute is such that you can't do it with more than one partner at a time," he said.
When asked about a possible similar arrangement with Google, which launched its own IM service earlier in August.
"Certainly, we'd be willing to talk to them, but in terms of executing against the deal we described earlier, we've got to get this right," Irving said.
The closest public IM users have come to IM interoperability is through IM managers, such as Trillian, which lets users combine their AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, IRC, Jabber and ICQ identities under one console.