Bayosphere

I’m heading to Copenhagen today, so expect light postings until later.

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IDG: Linux Version of Acquired Antivirus Product Doomed. Users and resellers of RAV AntiVirus, especially popular on Linux platforms, are in limbo after Microsoft’s decision to buy the RAV technology from Romania’s GeCAD Software Srl. Microsoft plans to discontinue the RAV product line after completing its acquisition. GeCAD, which claims that its products protect more than 10 million users worldwide, will support current customers through the end of their contracts.

Back when the United States enforced its antitrust laws in the technology sphere, this might have been prevented. Now that Microsoft is a partner of George W. Bush’s administration — in ways we still probably don’t fully know about — it can do anything it pleases.

Kinder, gentler Microsoft? The company’s pretenses in that direction do not hold up to even the most basic scrutiny.

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The public service piece of journalism is not just huge series of articles aimed at changing things and winning prizes. It’s also the little things some of us do to make our readers’ lives better. One of the best of our folks, Andy Bruno, died this week. As this story notes, “No problem was too small for Andy Bruno’s Action Line. For three decades, the Mercury News columnist devoted himself to finding answers for his readers, from finding lost driver’s licenses to rescuing unsent rebates to tracking down song lyrics.” May his family, amid grief, find comfort in having been part of a good man’s life, and vice versa.

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I’m at the London office of 20six, a new weblogging company. It’s based in Germany with operations in England, France and the Netherlands. Azeem Azhar, the U.K. managing director, is a veteran of technology journalism and several startups. More later…

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The ever-energetic Dave Sifry just put up Keyword Search on his Technorati site. It’s a little rough at the moment, but you can see the powerful potential.

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On a recent trip to Japan I was stunned to discover that more than 2 million people are making their phone calls over the Internet, not over their local phone company’s circuits. Voice over Internet Protocol is making inroads in the U.S. as well, though not as fast. But the trend looks unstoppable.

More in my Sunday column.

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Just starting a long road trip, so look for sporadic postings for a day or so. At least I got an upgrade…

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On my way home from Washington, where I went to speak on a security-versus-privacy panel last night at the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors conference. Only the panel got canceled when the Bush administration told its Transportation Security Administration honcho not to appear. Well, I got some work done on the book, anyway, and had dinner with friends I hadn’t seen in some time.

I stayed at an otherwise fine hotel that listed “wireless Internet” on its Web page as being available in its rooms. Little did I know that they were stretching the definition beyond recognition — they claimed the WebTV and remote (infrared) keyboard were the wireless Internet referred to on the site. Oh, sure.

They are, at least, putting in the real thing in the next couple of weeks, according to the hotel’s general manager, who agreed with me that the website was at best misleading. He removed the cost of my ISP phone calls from the hotel bill, at least.

Sheesh…

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New York Times: Executive Editor of The Times and Top Deputy Step Down. Howell Raines and Gerald M. Boyd, the two top-ranking editors of The New York Times, resigned this morning, five weeks to the day after the resignation of a wayward reporter named Jayson Blair set off a rapid chain of events that exposed deep fissures in the management and morale of the newsroom they had led for just under two years.

Wow…

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Today’s Lloyd Grove column in the Washington Post has two great tidbits, as it were. In order of appearance:

There are apparent conflicts in the time line of when Bill (Clinton) told his wife the truth about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Would Hillary Rodham Clinton shade reality to sell books and boost her political career? I’m shocked, shocked at the very idea.

Meanwhile, Bill O’Reilly, the obnoxious Fox ‘News’ talk show host, has been among the loudest shouters for a boycott of all things French. Guess where he ate lunch yesterday? Yes, at “one of Washington’s better known French restaurants,” Grove reports.

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