Lauren Ramsey

In all the hubbub surrounding the release of new Macs you may have missed the Windows 7 release. Well, if you're one of those people who needs Windows for work but prefers to use a Mac, maybe you do. Yeah, yeah, we're Mac users and so who cares? In order to use Windows on your Mac you require either Apple's Boot Camp or some variety of virtualization application.

The major players in this market-VMWare and Parallels-have released new versions of their applications and Rob's spent time with both. And it's just those applications that are the focus of my interview with senior editor Rob Griffiths. Tune it to hear his opinions. Apple has closed a security hole in a recent iPhone update and that's forced jailbreakers to seek other means of entry. After a word from Macworld Superguides, senior contributor, Ben Long, and I discuss the state of iPhone jailbreaking. Ben and I talk about whether jailbreaking is safe and still worth the bother.

Or you can point your favorite podcast-savvy RSS reader at: http://rss.macworld.com/macworld/weblogs/mwpodcast/ You can find previous episodes of our audio podcasts at Macworld's podcasting page. Download Episode #174 AAC version (21.3 MB, 43 minutes) MP3 version (20.4 MB, 43 minutes) To subscribe to the Macworld Podcast via iTunes 4.9 or later, simply click here. Got any feedback on this podcast? You can also leave us a message at 415/520-9761 if you'd like to have your comments included in a future podcast. Send me an e-mail or an audio comments in the form of an AAC or MP3 file. Show Notes I begin the episode with a reading of my Eight Steps to Internet Unpopularity.

Rob's taken a look at both Parallels Desktop 5 and VMWare Fusion 3. He also reviewed Sun's VirtualBox 2.1.4 last spring. If you're a troll, nitpicker, endless promoter, grudge holder, or simply clueless, you'll want to give it a listen. We touched on Boot Camp, but failed to mention that, according to Apple, Snow Leopard isn't yet ready to tackle Windows 7. During my talk with Ben I mentioned that the App Store has 100,000 apps. I also plugged Ben's book, Complete Digital Photography for good reason. I wasn't making that up.

It's outstanding. This episode is sponsored by Macworld Superguides. You'll absolutely be a better shooter after reading it. Follow this link for a discount on the just-released Total Snow Leopard Superguide.

Some users trying to upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7 have seen their PCs crippled by an endless series of reboots, according to reports on Microsoft's support forum. They reported a message on their machines that claimed the upgrade had been unsuccessful and that Vista would be restored. A Microsoft engineer writing on the same forum said the company was investigating users' problems, but downplayed them as "isolated issues." Users began posting messages about the endless reboots Friday, saying that the Windows 7 installation would hang two-thirds through the upgrade.

Instead, their PCs again booted to the Windows 7 setup process, failed, then restarted the cycle. "My upgrade failed in [the] last step," said a user identified as "Manjigani" in a thread titled "Windows 7 - Install Message - Upgrade Unsuccessful" on the Windows 7 support forum. "And now it is in continuous loop. I am stuck in limbo." "All the promises of stability and simplicity, and now there are so many problems with installation," bemoaned another used, "Derrty," on the same thread. "I can't even access my laptop nor do I have the ability to roll my system back to Vista. I let it run overnight hoping that it will fix itself, but no luck. All indications are the install removed any trace of Vista." Other than trying to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7, there did not seem to be any common characteristics of the computers or the users' actions. Users vented their rage online in scores of messages. "How on earth is Windows 7 so poorly manufactured that there even NEEDS to be a solution to installation issues?" asked "Chimaera717," who later reported receiving a marketing message from Microsoft while struggling with the endless reboots. "I just got an e-mail from Windows, titled 'Windows 7: Your PC, Simplified.' I really want to e-mail them back and say 'Windows 7: My PC, Crippled'." Microsoft support engineers entered the thread Sunday, asking for information from affected users, such as the version of Vista running before the Windows 7 upgrade attempt, and what, if any, antivirus software was on the machine. Some said that they had purchased a Windows 7 upgrade electronically from Microsoft's online store, others said they had downloaded the upgrade from Digital River, the Minneapolis-based company that fulfills Microsoft's $29.99 offer to college students, while still others said they had bought a retail copy of the new operating system at stores like Best Buy.

Sunday afternoon, a support engineer named "Keith" said that some users' problems may be related to the optical drive speed when creating an install DVD from a disk image downloaded from the Microsoft store or through Digital River. "Make sure you are burning the image at the slowest speed possible to avoid corruption on the installation disc," said Keith. "Digital River and Microsoft are investigating reports of this issue," he added. "This appears to be a series of isolated issues that are often related to the user's Internet provider or installed third-party software." Students, who have faced other problems with their downloaded Windows 7 upgrades, were told by Microsoft to seek help from Digital River through a special request-help page . One user pointed others to a document published last July on Microsoft's support site. This is not the first time that a Windows upgrade has crippled computers with endless reboots. The document outlined the endless reboot problem . "When attempting to upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7 the upgrade attempt may fail with the message 'This version of Windows could not be installed, Your previous version of Windows has been restored, and you can continue to use it'," the support document stated. "However, the next reboot of the machine will launch the upgrade process again only to fail with the same message." The document included steps users could take to try to regain control of their crippled computers. In February 2008, updates meant to prepare PCs for the release of Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) brought machines to their knees with reboot after reboot. Microsoft blamed computer makers for the XP snafu. In May 2008, the upgrade to Windows XP SP3 did the same.

IT network companies are still struggling to secure investments from venture capitalists, but an "insatiable demand" for Internet bandwidth could fuel an eventual recovery in the market. "Capacity for bandwidth is being absorbed at huge rates as people continue to offer more and more things over the Internet," says Tracy Lefteroff, a global managing partner of Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC). "When capacity gets constrained again they're going to have to add to the backbone and that ultimately is going to create demand for these products." The latest MoneyTree Report from PwC and the National Venture Capital Association illustrates a continuing struggle for networking companies, particularly start-ups. As recently as 2007, network companies were pulling in about $3 billion per quarter. In the third quarter, network vendors secured $1.2 billion in venture investments, slightly less than the second quarter investment level.

Only about 7% of third quarter dollars went to start-up and seed companies. A recovery probably won't happen this quarter, but the market should ultimately rebound, Lefteroff says. "If you look at the business cycles, I think we're through the worst of it," Lefteroff says. "We're somewhere on the upward slope. Just a dozen start-ups secured venture funding, while 209 early stage, expansion and later stage companies were able to find investors. It's just a question of how quickly we're going to progress. What the industry needs, Lefteroff says, is increasing numbers of acquisitions and good valuations on these purchases to encourage investors to start putting money back in the networking space. I do believe the insatiable demand for bandwidth on the Internet is ultimately going to drive the demand for products in this space." Good news for the mergers and acquisitions market includes Cisco's recent buying activity as well as Oracle's purchase of Sun, even though the latter has hit regulatory hurdles.

Hottest Tech M&A deals of 2009   Here are the top 10 venture capital deals in the IT networking market for the third quarter. Facebook secured a $100 million investment in the third quarter but is not included in this list. 1. Meru Networks Location: Sunnyvale, Calif.  Description: Develops converged Wi-Fi technologies. Network companies, as defined in this MoneyTree data cut, include computer software, hardware, peripherals and services; data, Internet, satellite and wireless communications; Internet software, e-commerce, digital imaging, computer graphics and other network-related technologies. Funding: $57.5 million Investors: BlueStream Ventures; Clearstone Venture Partners; D. E. Shaw Group; Evercore Partners; Monitor Venture Management; NeoCarta Ventures; Tenaya Capital. 2. Calix Networks Location: Petaluma, Calif. Funding: $50 million Investors: Azure Capital Partners; Foundation Capital; Menlo Ventures; Riverwood Capital; Sprout Group; St. Paul Venture Capital. 3. SecureWorks Location: Atlanta   Description: Provides network security services.

Description: Develops products designed to accelerate fiber-based service deployment. Funding: $31.5 million Investors: Noro-Moseley Partners; undisclosed firm. 4. Convey Computer Location: Richardson, Texas  Description: Develops hybrid-core computing products, which combine x86 technology with hardware-based, application-specific instructions to accelerate high-performance computing applications. Funding: $24 million Investors: Battery Ventures; DCM; Globespan Capital Partners; Trinity Ventures. 6. Greenplum  Location: San Mateo, Calif.   Description: Develops data warehousing and analytics technology. Funding: $24.2 million Investors: Braemar Energy Ventures; CenterPoint Venture Partners; Intel Capital; InterWest Partners; Rho Ventures; undisclosed firm. 5. Amalfi Semiconductor Location: Los Gatos, Calif.  Description: Operates as a fabless semiconductor company. Funding: $22.1 million Investors: Mission Ventures; Sierra Ventures. 7. VeriVue Location: Westford, Mass.   Description: Develops networking technology for distribution of digital media services.

Funding: $20 million Investors: CMEA Capital; Menlo Ventures; Redpoint Ventures. 8. (tie) Tremor Media Location: New York City  Description: Develops an online video advertising technology. Funding: $20.1 million Investors: Accel Partners; Comcast Interactive Capital; Matrix Partners; North Bridge Venture Partners; Sigma Partners; Spark Capital; undisclosed firm. 8. (tie) Schooner Information Technology Location: Menlo Park, Calif.  Description: Provides data access appliances for Internet data centers. Funding: $20 million Investor: SAP Ventures. 10. Teachscape Location: San Francisco   Description: Operates a Web-based application platform for delivering teacher development courses. Funding: $18.3 million Investors: ABS Capital Partners; Sprout Group Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jbrodkin

An explosion of HD movies rocked the iTunes Store this morning without much apparent fanfare from Apple. Headlining iTunes Store's newly-stocked HD shelves are Wall-E, a pre-order for Star Trek (which was only available in SD until now), Hero, The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Knowing, Bolt, and many more. There are now hundreds of new and classic films available to rent or purchase in HD from iTunes Store. Plenty of classics have arrived in HD as well, including both Kill Bill movies, Short Circuit, Zoolander, No Country for Old Men, and what is probably my favorite B-budget sci-fi film: Cube.

Unfortunately, most HD films-old and new-are listed at the premium $20 price point. Most of the new HD films are available for purchase, though some are bizarrely limited to rental only. Terminator 2 is one of the few exceptions, as it's been available in HD  for $13, at least since iTunes Extras arrived. It first arrived as a handful of rentals for Apple TV in January 2008, then expanded a couple months later to a few HD movies for sale in March 2008. Now I count over 280 HD movies for purchase or rent in the iTunes Store's Featured HD Movies section (which I think is all of them). This may get panned by some as an underwhelming release, but considering that movie studios have struggled to get on board with the digital-distribution age, this is a major step forward for completing the iTunes Store's trifecta of mainstream content. Top Gun is $18, but almost all the other new HD arrivals, no matter how old they actually are or whether they have iTunes Extras (most do not), are $20. It's been almost two years since HD video came to the iTunes Store.

Micron Technology Inc. announced today a new solid-state drive (SSD) that it described as the industry's fastest for notebook and desktop PCs with about 50% better data transfer speeds compared with today's best consumer-grade flash drives. All current SSD and most hard disk drives use the SATA 2.0, 3Gbit/sec. interface. "This drive is the fastest on 6Gbit/sec. Micron's RealSSD C300 drive is the first to leverage the SATA 3.0 specification, which offers 6Gbit/sec. throughput and the Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) 2.1 specification providing sequential read speeds of up to 355MB/sec. and sequential write speeds of up to 215MB/sec., Micron said.

SATA and it's the fastest on 3Gbit/sec. Micron is manufacturing its SSDs using two different NAND flash chip types: a 32Gbit multi-level cell (MLC) NAND chip that offers up to 30,000 write/erase cycles, and a 16Gbit single-level cell (SLC) NAND chip capable of 300,000 write/erase cycles, the company said. SATA," said Dean Klein, vice president of memory system development at Micron. "So even on a system that doesn't have a 6Gbit port, it's an impressive drive." The C300 SSD is Micron's first product using 34 nanometer (nm) lithography technology, which allowed the company to double the NAND flash chip density over its previous 50nm technology. The ReadSSD C300 uses MLC flash chips. Micron RealSSD C300 is based on eight internal parallel channels to its interleaved flash chips.

MLC NAND allows two or more bits to be stored per flash memory cell and SLC allows only one bit per cell. By comparison, OCZ's highest-end consumer SSD, its Agility EX - which uses high-grade SLC-flash memory - has a peak read rate of 255MB/sec. and a top write rate of 195MB/sec. The drive also takes advantage of the faster ONFI 2.1 specification , which was released earlier this year. Also considered an industry leader is Intel's X25-M consumer-grade SSD , which uses a 10-channel architecture and delivers a top sequential read speed of 230MB/sec. and a 100MB/sec.. top write speed. "[Intel's SSD] used to be the industry bar, now ours is," Klein said. The new ONFI specification increases the data transfer speed per channel from 40 megatransfers (MT) per second in the older asynchronous SATA mode to 166MT to 200MT/sec in the new synchronous mode that ONCI 2.1 ushered in. The new C300 drives will be available in 1.8-in. and 2.5-in. models.

A MT is equal to 1 million data transfers per second. "The time it takes to get the data to the NAND and off the channel to do something else is shortened, so even on writes, your performance can go up significantly," Klein said. Both models will come in 128GB and 256GB capacities and will ship in the first quarter of 2010. Micron is targeting its drive at equipment manufacturers and said volume pricing for the C300 SSD in quantities greater than 1,000 units would be $350 for the 128GB model and $715 for the 256GB drive. The combination of these technology advancements has enabled the RealSSD C300 drive to far outshine the competition." Micron posted a video of its RealSSD C300 drive to demonstrate its performance advantages. "Hard drives gain little performance advantage when using SATA 6Gbit/sec. because of mechanical limitations," Klein said. "As a developer of leading-edge NAND technology, along with our sophisticated controller and firmware innovations, Micron is well positioned to tune our drives to take full advantage of the faster speeds achieved using the SATA 6Gbit/sec. interface.

MiFi is going to the enterprise. The actual MiFi device will be free for a two-year service commitment, or $99 for a one-year commitment, on top of a one-time $50 configuration fee per device as well as the iPassConnect service. IPass Inc. said today it will resell in December the Novatel Wireless MiFi 2200 mobile broadband device used by consumers but it will be preconfigured with customer-specific security and connections to iPassConnect mobility manager software for business users.

That service runs $45 to $60 per month per user in the U.S. and gives 3G WAN wireless broadband access as well as easy Wi-Fi connections globally to 160,000 hot spots, said iPass vice president of product and offer marketing Rick Bilodeau. With iPassConnect, the IT shop of each company also has a single console where it can manage potentially thousands of users. IPass, launched in 1996, is already used by about 400 of the world's largest companies whose workers can find wireless WAN and Wi-Fi access from laptops using broadband cards easily as they travel from country to country, Bilodeau said in an interview. Adding MiFi to its portfolio means iPass customers can connect wirelessly as many as five Wi-Fi-enabled devices to the 2-ounce MiFi device , which then connects to a wireless CDMA 1x EV-DO Rev network. IPass has been device agnostic and already provides access to its software from a variety of laptop broadband cards, but the relationship with Novatel has been longstanding and seemed logical, Bilodeau said.

The MiFi device without a service plan would cost a user about $215, Bilodeau said. "Today, MiFi is just an open hot spot out there, and we see the primary use of MiFi with iPass by folks in consulting and accounting or professional services who visit customer sites and can't use a third-party Wi-Fi service," Bilodeau said. "This approach allows a 3G wireless connection to a corporate VPN, so you still have security." IPass is adding SSID and security keys to MiFi devices specific to each customer, with a configuration to iPassConnect, he said. It is not exclusive to Novatel, however, he said. Paulak said iPass is basically reselling the MiFi service offered by CDMA carriers Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Inc., but iPass will be able to offer a more complete managed mobility service than Verizon or Sprint. With support for MiFi, iPass is able to extend its management service from, for example, a single worker to a workgroup that could need a temporary office solution as the group travels together, said Eric Paulak, a Gartner analyst. In addition to the MiFi service, iPass also announced a new Open Device Framework to allow its customers to quickly integrate new 3G devices into the iPassConnect software.

Paulak said the Open Device Framework sounds like a good idea because it offers a process for helping customers connect to new and different devices, but he had reservations about its impact on newcomers to mobile management. "My concern is that it is going to be lost on most companies that don't see [device management] as a problem today," he said. "This is mainly a promise to existing customers ... but it will be hard to convince non-customers of the value of this type of service." The capability will come to IT managers and others in the form of templates that can be adapted to a growing number of devices that will be wirelessly capable, including machine-to-machine devices that aren't even voice capable, Bilodeau said.

A sweeping new bill that would implement a national standard for data protection and breach notification got a boost of support today from the Senate Judiciary Committee. If it becomes law, the bill, which was introduced by Sen. The committee approved the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act of 2009 (S.1490) by a vote of 15-5. The bill now is headed to the full Senate for consideration.

Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), would require companies and government agencies to follow specific rules for protecting sensitive and personally identifiable data. They also would be required to deploy measures for controlling access to sensitive data, detecting and logging unauthorized accesses to the data and for protecting data while it is in transit and at rest. Under the proposed law, all private and government entities handling sensitive data would be required to implement specific risk assessment and vulnerability testing measures. The bill would introduce a federal breach notification standard under which companies would be required to notify not just affected individuals of a data breach, but also in some cases, credit reporting agencies and the U.S. Secret Service. The law would also provide notification exemptions for companies that have taken adequate measures - such as encryption - to protect sensitive data.

It would establish a new Office of Federal Identity Protection within the Federal Trade Commission and stiffen penalties for identity theft and related fraud. Companies would also not be required to immediately disclose a breach, if it would hinder a criminal investigation. The law provides for penalties against executives of companies that willfully conceal a data breach. But such exemptions would need to be vetted by the Secret Service. If approved, S.1490 would likely pre-empt similar data protection laws that have been passed already in 46 states. Several attempts at passing similar federal legislation over the past three years have failed, howeer, and it remains unclear whether S.1490's fate will be any different.

Many security analysts have been calling for such a federal bill , arguing that it would be easier for companies to comply with one national law rather than a patchwork of 46 different state laws. Growing concerns related to ID theft and the criminalization of cyberspace have added an element of urgency to the bill. But the provisions in S.1490 which would require breached entities to report to the government "will create an entire new set of bureaucracy within the U.S. Secret Service and the FTC," Pescatore said. Even so, the bill includes provisions that are unnecessary and burdensome, said John Pescatore, an analyst with reserach firm Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. "A federal level disclosure law to make sure affected individuals are notified would be a very good thing, mostly to stop the growth of individual state laws with differing requirements," he said. The bill's overly prescriptive language on the security controls that companies need to protect sensitive data is also likely to result in pushback from industry, he said. "I think we have started to already see in the health-care bill a lot of pushback," over similar legislation, and the same thing is likely to happen with this legislation he said.

Such concerns could once again derail this bil, he said. "Congress should really just focus on a national disclosure law that states cannot preempt - that would bring value to both the people whose identities are being stolen and the businesses which need to be driven harder to protect it," he said.

In many IT organizations, the WAN does not matter. One of the primary roles of the WAN is to enable acceptable application delivery. What you do with the WAN, however, matters greatly.

As will be discussed in this newsletter, we are entering a new ear of application delivery – one that we refer to as Application Delivery 2.0. As will be discussed in the next two newsletters, the challenges of the Application Delivery 2.0 era will be notably more complex and challenging than are those of the current era. That changed a few years ago when IT organizations began to focus on ensuring acceptable application delivery. While ensuring acceptable application delivery has always been important, it historically was not a top of mind issue for most IT organizations. They did this by deploying a first generation of solutions that were intended to mitigate the impact of chatty protocols such as CIFS (Common Internet File System), to offload computationally intensive processing (for example TCP termination and multiplexing) off of servers, and to provide visibility into the performance of applications. Jim and Steve try to avoid cute marketing clichés. Hence, we are hesitant to use the phrase Application Delivery 2.0 as it sounds so much like just one more marketing cliché. However, we see distinct evidence, both from vendors and from IT organizations that we are indeed entering a second generation of application delivery. Unfortunately, the IT organization of a few years ago typically approached application delivery from a tactical, stove-piped approach.

Part of the characterization of Application Delivery 2.0 is that IT organizations are beginning to face a new set of challenges. As is so often the case in our industry, IT organizations have to support traditional or legacy technologies and challenges at the same time that they have to respond to new technologies and challenges. That does not mean that the traditional challenges of supporting chatty protocols or maximizing the performance of servers have gone away. One of the new challenges facing IT organizations stems from the changing role of the mobile worker. That is no longer the case. A few years ago, there were relatively few mobile workers and the communications needs of the mobile workers of that era were satisfied with simple cell phones.

Now it is common to have 25% or more of employees be mobile at any point in time. This introduces all of the performance and security issues associated with wireless networking into the mix of application delivery challenges. These employees have smartphones or other wireless devices that they routinely use to access business-critical applications. In the next WAN newsletter we will continue to discuss the challenges that are driving Application Delivery 2.0. We will also mention some steps that IT organizations are taking to respond to these challenges.

Twitter and LinkedIn users will now be able to post status updates to the two Web sites simultaneously, in a deal aimed at enhancing professional use of Twitter and expanding the audience for the business-focused social network LinkedIn. "The business use case of Twitter is turning out to be very important," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says in a video announcing the partnership. "More and more people are finding the persona they create for themselves on the Web is part of their resume, in many ways." There are already similar integrations between Twitter and Facebook, allowing users to post simultaneously to the two sites. While on Twitter, users can choose to share all tweets in their LinkedIn status, or only selected ones by typing hash tags #IN or #LI. "The idea is simple: When you set your status on LinkedIn you can now tweet it as well, amplifying it to your followers and real-time search services like Twitter Search and Bing," writes LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue. "And when you tweet, you can send that message to your LinkedIn connections as well, from any Twitter service or tool." LinkedIn is a more private social network than Twitter, with connection requests requiring confirmation by both parties. LinkedIn users can get started by clicking the Twitter icon on the LinkedIn home page, or go to their profiles and click on an option to add a Twitter account. Integrating the two makes it easier for LinkedIn users to reach a wider audience when they want to, such as when they have an important question or job inquiry. "You want the widest possible distribution … because you want your question answered at all costs," Stone says.

The partnership was announced Monday and the new features will be rolled out gradually this week. Twitter-like status updates can help users find new jobs or kick off new projects, LinkedIn officials say. "It's the integration of the business side of the tweets and Twitter with the business ecosystem of LinkedIn that make the two work together," says LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.