Life, Interceding May 24, 2006
It’s very easy to get out of the habit of writing posts to these things, isn’t it? For those that have been checking in - sorry… I’m back on top of things now, and should have some interesting bits and pieces up over the next few days.
links for 2006-05-13 May 13, 2006
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Interesting read.
Two Random Observations… May 9, 2006
1. You’d think with the amount of rain we get in Tampa and the surrounding areas, people would have learned to drive in the rain by now… Now, granted, we haven’t had any decent rain in a while (the weather folks this morning were saying that today was the first “measurable” rain in a month), but honestly, if you’d have looked at the accidents and tailbacks this morning, you’d have thought the whole population here had been beamed in from the middle of the Sahara or something!
2. There’s a big ol’ wildfire burning a little south and east of me. Here’s one report. No imminent threat to me where I live or work, but that’s not a point at the moment - the point is that there’s a few folks considering me a whole lot less paranoid today than they did a few days ago, when I wrote about my “go” bag. The folks in the fire area were subject to mandatory evacuation for a while - and while you can, to some degree, weather a hurricane (pardon the pun), there’s not a whole lot you can do when a wall of flame is headed your way. So having the essentials ready to grab-and-go is surely a plus. (The fire is mostly contained now, if you’re curious).
links for 2006-05-06 May 6, 2006
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70 TV Channels, available over the web.
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“This spectacular “blue marble” image is the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, ocean
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Like the title says. Not sure what the legitimacy of this one is yet.
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Very thorough list of kits and contents.
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Including a “Battle Bag”
links for 2006-05-05 May 5, 2006
Blackberry Enterprise Server Express Announced May 4, 2006
This was announced yesterday. Definately a step-up from the Desktop Redirector option! Makes me a lot happier about having to move from a corporate Blackberry to a personally-owned device sometime in the next year.
RIM Announces BlackBerry Enterprise Server ExpressSoftware Now Available as a Free Download with New BlackBerry Device Purchase
Waterloo, ON - Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the immediate availability of BlackBerry® Enterprise Server Express™, a new offering aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, branch offices and companies new to BlackBerry. BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express provides the same enterprise-level security, reliability, features and functionality of BlackBerry Enterprise Server v4.1 and is available as a free download from RIM via the Internet to any customer who purchases a new BlackBerry device.*
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BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express provides tight integration with
Microsoft® Exchange, IBM® Lotus® Domino® or Novell® GroupWise® to
enable secure, pushed-based wireless access to email, organizer,
Internet and intranet applications. BlackBerry Enterprise Server
Express software comes with a single user license and is upgradeable to
support up to 15 users (with purchase of additional client access
licenses). It can also be upgraded beyond 15 users (with the
purchase of an electronic unlock key) to a full BlackBerry Enterprise
Server.
RIM being sued by Visto May 2, 2006
From the “Here We Go Again” files…
Visto sues RIM for patent infringement - Computerworld
MAY 01, 2006 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - BlackBerry users have another patent lawsuit to worry about. Just weeks after their service was nearly shut down by a lawsuit brought by NTP Inc., the wireless e-mail devices are now being threatened by legal action brought by software provider Visto Corp. In a lawsuit filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Visto claims that Research In Motion Ltd.’s (RIM’s) BlackBerry service violates four Visto patents. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and asks the court to shut down BlackBerry’s service in the U.S.
Clearly one to keep an eye on. RIM settled with NTP just two months ago, for $612.5 million. Hopefully this one won’t drag on as long as the previous drama did, but I wouldn’t count on it.
From Blackberry Cool, the patents being sued over are:
- U.S. Patent No. 6,085,192 titled, “System And Method For Securely Synchronizing Multiple Copies Of A Workspace Element In A Network”
- U.S. Patent No. 6,023,708, titled “System And Method For Using A Global Translator To Synchronize Workspace Elements Across A Network”
- U.S. Patent No. 6,708,221 titled, “System And Method For Globally And Securely Accessing Unified Information In A Computer Network”
- U.S. Patent No. 6,151,606 titled, “System And Method For Using A Workspace Data Manager To Access, Manipulate And Synchronize Network Data”
It goes without saying that RIM is disputing this - “RIM believes it does not infringe Visto’s patents and will file its legal response in due course” is the appropriate quote. A countersuit is a distinct possibility.
