My antivirus software blocked this malware carrier’s payload, but I enjoyed reading the message. You think they’d at least run spellcheck.

Dear Bzmedia Member,

We have temporarily suspended your email account. This might be due to either of the following reasons:

1. A recent change in your personal information (i.e. change of address).

2. Submiting invalid information during the initial sign up process.

3. An innability to accurately verify your selected option of subscription due to an internal error within our processors.

See the details to reactivate your Bzmedia account.

Sincerely,The Bzmedia Support Team

>> Update 11/14: I received another version of this message today:

Dear user feedback,

It has come to our attention that your Bzmedia User Profile ( x ) records are out of date. For further details see the attached document.

Thank you for using Bzmedia!
The Bzmedia Support Team

Here’s the opening of a public relations pitch that I received a few moments ago:

Hi Alan,

Your publication is dedicated to providing readers with engaging and timely information about technology advances that can increase efficiencies throughout their enterprise and supply chain. I was wondering if you would be interested in the attached press release for further development.

I don’t know about you, but I find such messaging to be inappropriate and pretentious. It’s as if the writer is saying, “Hey, buddy, we know what your job is, and your job is to take care of my client.”

The attached press release had something to do with the manufacturing and distribution of aluminum building products. Whoops! Misfire!

Darryl Taft, a reporter for eWeek.com, wrote a very nice summary of the Total Eclipse panel at EclipseWorld 2007.

The panel, which had Eclipse Foundation’s Mike Milinkovich, Object Mentor’s Bob Martin, and CodeGear’s David Intersimone, was on Tuesday evening, Nov. 6.

I have only two minor quibbles with Darryl’s otherwise great story.

• Darryl (pictured) failed to name the company that produced EclipseWorld 2007 (BZ Media).

• He also failed to name or quote the fourth member of that panel (yours truly). I was just “the panel’s moderator.”

Those are tiny quibbles. The real point, of course, is that we had a wonderful, open and engaging panel discussion.

Mike, Bob and David are among the most respected voices in the software development community. It was an honor to share the stage with them.

The BBC News runs the most wonderful stories. I’d have thought the following to be urban legends, were it not for today’s BBC News story “UK chooses ‘most ludicrous laws’ ” where I learned:

• It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.
• Only a clerk in a tropical fish store has permission to be topless in public in Liverpool.
• The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King.

The story also details interesting laws in the U.S., Indonesia, Switzerland, France and elsewhere.

What a world!

There’s a good chance that Yaesu, one of the best manufacturers of amateur (“ham”) radio equipment, may be disappearing soon.

I’ve been a proud owner of many Yaesu tabletop radios, from shortwave receivers to HF transceivers. My favorite HT (handi-talki is the ham version of “walkie-talkie”) is a Yaesu VX-5R triple-band. (The VX-5R, pictured, was discontinued in late 2005. The closest current model is the VX-6R.)

It looks like Yaesu, and its parent company Vertex Standard, are going to be swallowed up by mighty Motorola. You can read the full Motorola press release here.

Like Vertex Standard, Motorola is a big player in the two-way radio market. However, Motorola hasn’t done anything in the amateur radio market for many years.

The press release briefly mentions Vertex’s strengths in amateur, and says that the deal will give Motorola access to new business opportunities. That would be wonderful news, though it would seem unlikely that the giant Motorola would have any real use for the Yaesu niche amateur-radio products. It’s not a large market, and it’s not growing.

If Motorola is willing to continue investing in Yaesu – and can use its manufacturing and distribution clout to lower prices and add new dealers, that would be great.

Otherwise, the best we can hope for would be that another ham radio player, like Kenwood or Icom, would purchase the Yaesu product line. However, because many of Yaesu amateur radios are derivative of higher-volume Vertex commercial radios, it’s not clear how that would work.

As suspected, I had to change the time zone on my BlackBerry 8700g again today.

Last weekend, I had to change the handheld from Eastern Time (GMT-5) to Caracas Time (GMT-4), because it erroneously “auto-adjusted” for Daylight Savings Time on Oct. 28. The device didn’t know that the U.S. Congress changed the DST shift date to today, Nov. 4.

I received several letters about my call to repeal Daylight Savings Time. Whatever minimal benefits it might have are offset by the needless confusion of having to adjust clocks twice per year in this anachronistic holdover from an agrarian age. It was bad enough when we could really just adjust clocks. Increasingly, however, the clocks are embedded in software or firmware.

Even were DST a constant, wherein it always changed on the same dates every year, that adds significant complexity (= cost) to any timekeeping algorithm.

With DST being a variable (as demonstrated this year), that complexity explodes tremendously. I’m sure that the cost of having to test software, and issue firmware or software patches, for Congress’s DST change was very significant for software makers, hardware makers and customers.

Only one person wrote in favor of keeping DST:

I agree DST can be a pain to work with in technology but the idea of getting rid of DST for this reason just seems silly to me. We should be improving the technology to better support our lifestyles not the other way around.

The person said DST gives him more daylight after work for outdoor activities. I suppose that’s a benefit.

>> Update: My wife was talking about DST with a friend this morning. Her friend’s car clock adjusts to/from DST automatically — and it was wrong all week, and only “fixed” itself this morning.

The “One Laptop Per Child” program, pioneered by Nicholas Negroponte, is breathtaking in its scope and vision.

I had the opportunity to talk to him a year ago, at the AMD Global Vision Conference in Los Angeles, and was impressed that the program focuses not only on the hardware, but pays just as much attention to the practical issues of culture.

OLPC knows it’s not going to be easy to incorporate the computers into an educational and lifestyle experience in developing nations.

Negroponte and the One Laptop Per Child Association realize that the OLPC program is as much about communication and community as it is about technology — and that this technology could potentially be seen as a disruptive influence, causing as many problems as it solves. They’ve put a lot of thought into understanding those issues.

Admittedly, those topics are far outside my experience and expertise, but it seems that they’ve covered all the angles.

From my perspective, however, there are two questions. One, how can I help distribute their XO laptops to where they’re needed most? Two, how can I get my own hands on one? The first part is easy: Much of the OLPC program is based on donations. For $200 you can give one laptop to a needy child, for $400 you can give two, and so-on.

However, Negroponte is a smart guy. He knows that many of us in the U.S. want one of those innovative little laptops ourselves, even though we really don’t need one. So, the OLPC folk came up with an interesting program: Give 1 Get 1. For $399 you can purchase two laptops: one goes to a child in a developing nation, the other goes to you.

The short-term promotional program kicks off Nov. 12. You can sign up to receive an e-mail when OLPC is ready to take orders. I’ve put my name on the list, and look forward to helping a needy child, while also satisfying my own curiosity about the technology. Please join me in supporting OLPC.

I’m alarmed by early words about Mac OS X 10.5’s firewall:

• By default, it’s turned off
• When it’s turned on, rules are set by application instead of by service
• Even when explicitly disabled, some ports are advertised on the LAN and can be accessed.

If this is true, it’s bad news.

Is it true? According to a report from Heise Security, Leopard’s firewall is a step backwards from the firewall in the previous version, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

As mentioned earlier, I haven’t yet installed Leopard. I still intend to do so, but on a test system only – which is cocooned safely inside my LAN and guarded by two hardware firewall appliances.

If the firewall is as porous as this early reports says, I won’t be putting Leopard onto my everyday work machine until Apple fixes it. The MacBook Pro travels widely and connects to public WiFi networks. The firewall is critical.

My tentative recommendation is to hold off on any deployments of Leopard until Apple addresses the issue, or until other organizations can verify (or refute) what Heise reports.

If you, dear reader, hear more about this, one way or another, please let me know.

On October 9, 2000, InternetWeek published a review I’d written of TrueTime Inc.’s TimeVault network time appliance. I wanted to link it as a reference to my posting “My BlackBerry is caught by the Daylight Savings Time fiasco.” While slightly dated, it’s still a good overview of network time. Sadly, the InternetWeek archives are long gone. So here the review is again, for your reading pleasure.

Time is the fire in which we burn.” So said Dr. Soran, the protagonist in the movie “Star Trek: Generations.” Of course, what he meant to say is: “Time is the absolute reference we use to keep all of our servers, applications and transaction logs in sync.” On the U.S.S. Enterprise, it’s easy to keep systems synchronized, typically by detecting the quantum state of the universe by emitting anti-tachyon beams from the main deflector array. But, back in the 21st century, we have to use more prosaic methods: Time servers.

Why? For one thing, internal consistency: When tracking down a communications problem between two systems, knowing that the clocks are keeping the same time means event logs, ping reports and other time-stamped data can be analyzed with some degree of confidence. It’s also important for alignment with the outside world. When recording e-commerce transactions, it’s important to note the time of the request — and in some cases, such as when dealing with securities or other financial transactions, recording the accurate time may be mandated by law.

So why not just set the system clocks? Well, it’s hard to set them accurately enough using manual methods. But more importantly, PC clocks drift, sometimes by minutes each day. They can also be reset, either accidentally by an errant program or confused user, or even maliciously by someone who wishes to alter the time stamps.

The solution is to configure each server to periodically request the current time from a common trusted source, and adjust its own real-time clocks accordingly.

NTP (IETF RFC 1035) is the old Unix protocol used by computers to receive and respond to requests for the current time. When properly equipped with a client which can send NTP signals, workstations and servers can request the time from any trusted source. One source that many individuals use is the U.S. government’s publicly accessible time servers, such as the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., or the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo.

Although time clients aren’t bundled with most operating systems, they’re not hard to find. The one we use for Win32 clients and servers is a free Automachron app from One Guy Coding, which can be configured to work with any NTP server. We’ve configured Automachron to sync the time of each server at startup, as well as once every hour, from the nearest NTP server, which at this review was www.time.nist.gov.

In some cases, however, an Internet-based time server isn’t good enough, because of the jitter and uncertainty of packet delivery. It also may be inconvenient to get the time from a distant location or other place where an Internet connection contains considerable delay. When synchronizing multiple sites — across the country or around the world — it may also be important to have a common time standard. That’s where TrueTime Inc.’s TimeVault comes in: It’s a self-contained NTP server appliance that can acquire extremely accurate time through a variety of sources, including satellites.

It’s About Time

TimeVault is a 1U rack-mountable server appliance that acquires accurate time from one of three sources: First, it uses its built-in Global Positioning System to read time being continuously transmitted from a constellation of 29 low-earth-orbit satellites using an external antenna, which ships with the server. When receiving time via GPS, the company claims that the server’s clock is accurate to within one microsecond. In that mode, it’s known in the industry as a “Stratum 1” time source, the most accurate type of time source on our planet other than labs using atomic clocks.

If a GPS signal isn’t available (perhaps the antenna blew down), TimeVault periodically dials NIST’s Automated Computer Time Service (ACTS) using its built-in modem and a dedicated phone line. In that case, the system claims to have 2 to 5 microsecond accuracy. If there’s no GPS or ACTS signal (maybe the phone line was cut when the antenna fell down), TimeVault attempts to get the time over the Internet from a publicly accessible NTP server. In the meantime, its internal clock keeps time, and provides the time to clients requesting the time via the NTP protocol.

The server itself is extremely simple to install. We plugged in the server, attached the GPS antenna’s 25-foot cable to the BNC connector, and leaned the antenna against a window. We also plugged the time server’s 10/100 Ethernet port into our LAN. (For best results, the antenna should be situated where it has a complete view of the sky, so that it can “see” at least three GPS satellites; our westward-facing window did the trick, but in a large facility the antenna should go onto the roof.)

After the server booted up, it acquired an IP address from our DHCP server, and the display panel showed its IP address. Since we wanted TimeVault to have a static IP address, we used an array of six push buttons on the server’s front to change it. The server then rebooted, and showed the correct address. After about 10 minutes, the server’s two-line LED panel lit up with the correct time and date, calibrated against Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), which is the technical name for Greenwich Mean Time.

Clock Me In

At that point, you’ve got a very expensive two-line clock. In order to use it as a time server, it’s necessary to configure devices on the network to interrogate it. Unlike other protocols such as DHCP, time servers do not advertise their services. Clients therefore need to be set up with an NTP client that points to the time server by its IP address or fully qualified name. A DHCP server can also be set up to add the address of the NTP server to its configuration data; in that case, the NTP client must be able to use that information.

Although TimeVault’s documentation explains the NTP protocol in excruciating detail, unfortunately it says nothing about how to actually use it. The company’s Web site isn’t any help, either. Nor does the company provide any NTP client utilities for various operating systems. Fortunately, because we already had been using Automachron on our Windows-based systems, it was easy enough to redirect them from using www.time.nist.gov to www.192.168.0.50, TimeVault’s private address on our network. Still, documentation should have been clearly provided, along with links to NTP client software.

Out of the box, TimeVault can only sync time with the GPS system. To configure it to use ACTS or for it to perform a last-resort time sync over the Internet requires access to its management system. The server is very flexible, offering serial-port console, telnet and Web-based administration.

Via Telnet or serial port access, the server requires a cryptic set of “F” commands, such as F03, which returns the current time, or F60, which displays a status report on the GPS satellites. There’s no Telnet help function. If you don’t have handy either chapter four of the manual or the easily lost quick-reference card, you won’t be able to do anything.

Access to the Telnet and serial functions are protected by username and password.

The Web-based interface is much better. Browsing to Time Vault’s IP address results in a pleasant-looking time display, which shows the current time (UTC) and the server’s operational status — that is, which time source it’s using. This is a straight HTML page, so the time display is static; manually refreshing the page updates the time. From there, the server’s various settings can be administered, including setting parameters for calling into NIST’s ACT server and configuring it to pull the time over the Internet (or the LAN) from another NTP server. In those cases, a Java applet lets the administrator edit text-based configuration files stored on the appliance — a cryptic process, and again, not one that should be attempted without the manual.

TimeVault is also designed to respond to SNMP polling, and the manual contains details about its custom MIBs, which can report back on satellite status as well as overall functioning of the server. A copy of the MIB is available electronically, and the company says it will work with HP OpenView and Sun’s X-SNMP package.

TimeVault’s developers clearly know their time sources, but have a lot to learn about user-friendly appliance design.

Fortunately, it’s probably not a device that needs to be administered frequently.

Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?

TimeVault is a very specialized piece of equipment. Although all network servers should be aligned to a common and trusted time source to keep their clocks and logs in sync, few networks will require the Stratum 1 precision that TimeVault offers. If being accurate within a few seconds is good enough, then aligning with www.tycho.usno.navy.mil, www.time.nist.gov or any other publicly accessible time server might be good enough. For large organizations, it might be advisable to set up a single time-server internally, which is synched against one of those services.

But in cases where there’s a need for extreme precision and reliability on behalf of the servers — such as when monitoring financial or e-commerce transactions; monitoring service level agreements; or supplying time service to sites with poor Internet access — the Stratum 1-level TimeVault will supply a degree of accuracy unavailable otherwise.

This might also serve businesses in good stead if they need to document the source of their time stamps, to meet regulatory or ISO-9000 requirements. In those cases, TimeVault is a simple solution that can do the job with precision.

Though, frankly, wouldn’t you rather squirt some antitachyons from the main deflector array?

I have my copy of Mac OS X 10.5, and can’t wait to install it. I’m particularly excited about two features of the operating system:

• How it will work on 64-bit-capable Macs, including my MacBook Pro and my son’s Mac Mini. Even though the kernel remains 32-bit, there should be some substantive improvements. For the first time, my 64-bit 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo-based MacBook Pro might seem faster than our 32-bit 2.0GHz Core Duo-based iMac.

• Trying Time Machine as an alternative backup scheme to what we do now, which is selective folder backups to a network drive using FoldersSynchronizer.

Sadly, I will have to wait to install Leopard. The software came out just before some really busy travel times for me (I’m writing this from New York, and then next week I’m in northern Virginia for EclipseWorld). That’s not the right time for experimenting with a new OS — let us not forget, this is a significant software change. I probably won’t be able to install until mid-November.

I’ve had to console myself with this excellent, meaty review of Leopard from John Siracusa. It’s fascinating reading.

(On my flight to NY, the woman next to me using a nice Dell laptop. When I hauled the MacBook Pro out of my bag, she exclaimed, “Show off!!” We had a good laugh about it.)

The battle of the programmable mobile phone is about to begin. And if Steve Jobs isn’t careful, Google will clean Apple’s clock.

Apple makes great platforms. The Mac (with Mac OS X) is a better PC than a Windows Vista box. I haven’t seen a music player that can compete with an iPod for ease of use, though most other vendors make devices that are less expensive, have more features and have more capacity.

By contrast, while the iPhone is an incredibly impressive piece of consumer electronics, it’s not a platform. It’s just a super-cool phone with a browser and music player.

In fact, during the past six months or so, Apple has done everything possible to dissuade developers from even thinking about the iPhone. The only way to develop apps for the device, Apple insists, is to build interactive Web sites that are optimized for the phone’s Safari Web browser.

Sorry, Steve, but that’s the wrong answer. A pint-sized browser does not a platform make.

In fact, we at BZ Media were astonished at how casually we were rebuffed when approaching Apple about producing a developer conference for the iPhone. After many queries, we were finally told by one of their spokespeople, “I’ve spoken with Developer Relations and this is not an opportunity we’re going to pursue.” Our further attempts to even have a telephone conversation with someone on the iPhone team were totally ignored.

Apple doesn’t want you to write software for the iPhone. They don’t want you to support their platform. Just write Web apps. Period.

That, my friends, is not going to drive the iPhone into ubiquity. A decade ago, Windows crushed OS/2 and Mac OS because Microsoft understood that third-party developers are essential to the success of a new platform. Developers of all stripes were invited to write software for Windows 2.x, 3.x, Windows 95 and Windows NT. IBM and Apple shunned third-party developers, except for a small handful of selected partners.

The tidal wave of Windows applications totally blew away its technologically superior, more secure and more stable competitors.

With that background, read Alex Handy’s SDTimes.com story about Google’s mobile phone efforts, “Gphone Rumors Hint at Broad Mobile Strategy.” As Alex explains, third-party developers seem to be front-and-center of Google’s platform strategy. Of course, it’s hard to know for sure what’s happening at the Googleplex; the company is known for its secrecy. Maybe the Gphone won’t even appear. Maybe it will be radically different than Alex’s sources say.

From where I sit, the iPhone is in peril. It’s thriving today because it’s cool, it’s new, it’s from Apple, and there’s no nothing else like it. But it’s also closed, which means that the iPhone is not a true platform. Unless Steve Jobs opens up the iPhone to true native applications — and does it soon — the Gphone is going to blow the iPhone away.

Join Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation, as well as ObjectMentor’s Bob Martin and CodeGear’s David Intersimone for a special interactive keynote panel at EclipseWorld 2007, coming up next month in Reston, Va.

Led by yours truly (I’m the conference chairman of EclipseWorld), this panel will examine the past, present and future of Eclipse – what makes it so successful, where the community and technology are heading, and what’s coming down the road.

Bob Martin, EclipseWorld’s keynote speaker on Wednesday morning, and David Intersimone, the Wednesday afternoon keynote, are renowned experts on software development, and on the efficient functioning of software teams, while Mike Milinkovich (pictured) obviously has a special “insiders” perspective on everything Eclipse.

The Total Eclipse panel is on Tuesday, Nov. 6, from 5:30-6:30pm. It will be followed by our new “Hands-On Tools Showcase,” or HOTS.

I hope you can make it! Here’s where you can find out more.

Another special EclipseWorld 2007 event I need to tell you about is the “Meet the Projects” Party, sponsored by the Eclipse Foundation. It’s on Wednesday night, rom 8:00-10:00pm. Eclipse project leaders and committers will be on hand to demo their projects and answer your questions. Come early to chat and network with some of the leaders of the Eclipse projects.

The Foundation will have a limited number of Eclipse shirts to give out at the party. RSVP to reserve your shirt!

American Express says, “Membership has its privileges,” and among of the benefits of having a corporate Amex card are free magazines. Lots of free magazines.

One of the ways that American Express makes money is by providing demographically desirable people to third parties. I can tell, because I receive tons of catalogs, magazines and other things every week, all sent to the particular spelling of my name/address that’s on my Amex account.

My demographic within Amex’s cardholder database must be “wealthy business owner,” which is about half correct. Being part of that demographic means that for the past eight years or so, I’ve been receiving business magazines (some of which I read), golfing magazines (which I throw away), Smithsonian Magazine (which I occasionally read) and Wired. I like that I get Wired. Thanks, Amex.

This week, something new came: the November issue of Flying Magazine, “The World’s Most Widely Read Aviation Magazine.” I actually checked the label, to make sure that it wasn’t misdelivered to the wrong house. Looks like Hachette Filipacchi (which publishes Flying) wasted their money purchasing my name from Amex.

It was fun to flip through the magazine before tossing it into the recycling bucket. There was a hands-on review of the Piper Meridian, a $2 million six-seat single-engine turboprop. There was a story about an emergency out-of-fuel landing on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. There were lots of cool ads for airplane tires, flight insurance plans, automatic throttle systems, FAA exam study guides, lots of airplanes, and of course, information about Heli-Expo 2008 (Feb. 24-26 in Houston).

I was surprised to see that Flying Magazine still uses reader service cards (which the publishing industry refers to as “bingo cards”). If you circle #969 on the post-paid bingo card, for example, Cessna will send you information about its Citation Mustang dual-engine business jet. Most business-to-business titles stopped using reader-service cards many years ago.

Membership has its privileges!

Several times over the past few days, I’ve been asked, “Do you know the relative market share held by BEA Systems and Oracle for Java application servers?”

And amazing, the answer is yes. BZ Research does a formal study every winter on the Java market. Here are the numbers from our 6th Annual Java Use & Awareness Study, December 2006.

Question: Which Java application servers are currently in use at your company?

Answers:

Apache Tomcat, 64.3%
IBM WebSphere App Server, 36.9%
JBoss Application Server, 32.0%
BEA WebLogic App Server, 23.7%
Oracle App Server, 22.4%
Sun Java Enterprise System, 19.0%
Apache Geronimo, 11.8%
SAP NetWeaver, 6.0%

All others that we asked came in lower than 5%. These numbers add to more than 100% because many organizations use more than one application server.

The full report contains historical trend data. It can be purchased from BZ Research.