Office Cleaning

I decided to take a look at the fine art that is office cleaning. You might be wondering how this relates to the IT theme of the website, but seeing as the majority of IT is run from offices and in London no less I am going to base the theme of this article on that simple theory.

Keeping a clean office is good for a number of reasons. Below I take a look at some of these:

Hygiene

One of the most obvious reasons for keeping a clean work area is for health and safety reasons. Keeping things organised and tidy reduces the chances of slips and trips. Keeping it clean can reduce health problems.

Professional

Nothing looks less professional than a scruffy, disorganised office. It looks like no-one knows where anything is. Keeping your office neat is essential, especially if you tend to show clients around often.

Morale

Unsurprisingly, an orderly office is a happy office. Keep yourself and staff feeling optimistic simply by tidying up the rooms.

Protect Equipment

Another import reason for keeping things clean is to ensure the security of your equipment. IT equipment is often sensitive to dirt particles, such as dust. Hiring professional office and carpet cleaning in London and similar big cities is easy so there’s no excuse. Carpets are a key area where dust sits so keep them spick and span.

HP’s Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop for small businesses

Small businesses and education institutions would be offered Novell’s Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop by HP in December 2008. The desktop would be initially available in the US and would be introduced in the UK at later date which is not yet planned by HP. Read more

Semiconductor market would see consecutive decline in annual revenues

Hard-pressed semiconductor industry would be registering consecutive fall in annual revenues for the first time in its history, as per Gartner’s forecast.

According to Gartner, 2009 worldwide semiconductor revenues would be 16.3% less to £14.7bn ($21.2bn), than revenues in 2008. This decline was 4.4% during 2007-2008. Read more

Apple releases firmware updates to address notebook problems

Apple has issued several firmware updates for fixing glitches in its latest batch of Mac notebooks.

These updates are released for the new MacBook, MacBook Air and Macbook Pro, produced in October 2008. However, Apple withheld any information about issues except disclosing that the EFI firmware improves stability. Read more

New release of Google Chrome will be without beta

Google’s browser, Chrome, is leaving beta. The company disclosed its plan at the Le Web 08 conference held in Paris. Vice President Marissa Mayer, while talking to TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington, revealed that Chrome is officially leaving beta status, but did not disclose likely date of its implementation. The change of status has since then been confirmed by Google’s representatives. Read more

Microsoft, Yahoo reopen talks on search deal

A report reveals that Microsoft and Yahoo may be negotiating on a search deal once again.

According to the report Microsoft has reopened talks with Yahoo to acquire its search business with an offer of £13bn ($20bn). Ross Levinsohn, former president of Fox Interactive and ex-chief executive Jonathan Miller are heading the negotiation. Read more

Mobile operators eager to promote mobile web usage on iPhone-type devices

Mobile operators are looking for iPhone-type devices to enhance mobile web usage and there are chances that more handsets are going to come out in market which specialise in set of selected functions. Read more

Low cost suppliers more competent to deal with economic crisis, says Red Hat chief

Red Hat’s chief executive, Jim Whitehurst, says that his company is capable enough to deal with economic crisis being a low-cost supplier.

Speaking to journalists The about future of Red Hat and views on the Linux market, Whitehurst remarked that “at times like this, cheaper generally wins”. Read more

Google admits breaking Apple’s iPhone App Store rules

Google has admitted that it violated Apple’s official rules of iPhone software-development kit while creating the Google Mobile application version for iPhone. It however denied a more serious charge levelled by Apple.
A Google spokesman acknowledged that undocumented application programming interfaces (APIs) have been used by Google Mobile for prompting a verbal search using iPhone’s proximity sensor. As per the rules iPhone developers while creating their applications are permitted to use only those APIs which are published in Apple’s software-development kit (SDK).

Google refuted a serious charge levelled by Apple that it was linking to dynamic or private frameworks in the Google Mobile application. Use of undocumented APIs could break application code when Apple updates its software. However, many developers have probably taken this risk for delivering a feature like Google’s verbal search prompt.

Under the terms of SDK, applications in which such techniques are used are not meant to make it through App Store. There are apprehensions whether Apple’s ability to keep with heavy flow of applications into App Store has reached the breaking point. It is also unclear whether Apple had prior knowledge about use of undocumented APIs by Google when it approved Google Mobile, or whether it missed that code inadvertently.

If Apple enforces its SDK terms, Google will have to modify the method of using proximity sensor or rewrite Google Mobile code.

Apple fixes security bug in iPhone

A serious security bug detected in the iPhone has been fixed by Apple in its latest firmware update.
The flaw was discovered by the German Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT). The flaw could enable tricking of user, via an email link, to take over the dialling capabilities of the iPhone, calling any premium-rate number while disabling the handset user controls to stop the call.

According to Fraunhofer SIT researcher, Collin Mulliner, the security bug in iPhone was small but could impact in a big way by enabling calling of arbitrary phone numbers via a website. Acting quickly on the information, Apple released 2.2 version of iPhone firmware. The security enhancement, bearing ID CVE-2008-4233, is meant to fix the bug.

Describing the bug, Apple explained that a call gets placed if an application is launched through Safari with display of call-approval dialogue. This can allow a malicious website to initiate phone call independent of user. Also, under certain circumstances, the maliciously created website could disable a user from deactivating dialling for a short time.

Apple complimented Collin Mulliner for reporting the flaw and stated that its update fixes the flaw by disabling Safari’s call-approval dialogue if an application is launched via Safari. Apple so far has addressed 12 flaws in 2.2 version of iPhone firmware. The firmware update has new features such as Google Street View.

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