private

As Microsoft counts down the final days to when it feels that Internet Explorer 8 is ready for public use, you can take a look at what's coming in this slideshow of IE 8's first Release Candidate.

Click on the image to your left to launch the gallery.

If you've played around with the previous beta versions of Internet Explorer 8, there's not much new in today's IE 8 Release Candidate 1. The feature improvements from IE 7 haven't changed: Web slices, InPrivate browsing, and Microsoft's new add-on system known as Accelerators remain the big-ticket items. Security enhancements include the SmartScreen Filter, which warns you in advance if other users have reported an URL as suspicious.

What has been improved in the RC is stability. Users who experienced persistent and irritating browser crashes should expect to see a much more stable browsing environment. … Read more

Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge noted an excellent response by my former Cassatt colleague, Jay Fry, to Andrew Conry-Murray of InformationWeek and Eric Knorr of InfoWorld, who contend that there is no such thing as a private cloud.

Jay's response is excellent, and I absolutely concur. However, I get so frustrated with these "its gotta be off-premises" arguments that for some time now, I've been trying to figure out a quick and dirty response I can fire off whenever such "puritanism" comes into play.

On Monday, in response to Rich's tweet about his post, I came up with a tweet that sums up my position as succinctly as I think I can put it. Here's the tweet:… Read more

Location matters. Black Swan-author Nassim Nicholas Taleb finds "living in big cities invaluable because you increase the odds of serendipitous encounters – you gain exposure to the envelope of serendipity." That's particularly true for romance. People move to big cities not to advance their careers, party, escape, disappear, be a star, and so on. The chick-flick fan that I am, I remember very well that candid line from Sex and the City (the movie): "I came to New York City to fall in love." Exactly. "Anyone who's predicting the decline of big cities has … Read more

Check Point Software Technologies announced Monday it plans to acquire the security appliance business of cell phone giant Nokia.

With the acquisition, the security software maker plans to use Nokia's security appliance business to broaden its footprint in the security appliance market.

Check Point, which is predominately known for its security firewall business, has branched out into the security appliance business over the past five years, beginning with its VPN-1 Edge device.

Nokia's security appliance business currently serves 23,000 customers throughout the world and is already designed to work with Check Point's firewall, virtual private network (… Read more

The much-anticipated Firefox 3.1 beta 2 is out and about for Windows and Mac users, incorporating the faster JavaScript engine TraceMonkey as the default setting and introducing Private Browsing, which has been in development for years. There are other improvements, of course, but the big one is the ability to turn off the cache and other private data settings with a single click.

Private Browsing works similarly to Google Chrome's Incognito, or Safari's setting of the same name. Go into Tools on the Menubar and click Private Browsing, and all your movements on the Internet will not … Read more

Update at 9:27 a.m. PST, with comments from a shareholder activist research firm. Correction, 9:35 a.m. PST: This story initially had the incorrect day the agreement was announced. It is Monday. Update at 1:33 p.m. PST, with closing stock price and excerpt from Southeastern podcast about its board seats.

Sun Microsystems and its largest investor announced an agreement on Monday that entitles the investor to nominate two directors to Sun's board, marking the latest action it has taken to right the struggling company.

Southeastern Asset Management, which holds a 22 percent stake in … Read more

Sun Microsystems last week launched its second major restructuring for the year--with good reason.

The company posted a sizable $1.68 billion net loss in its fiscal first quarter last month, amid a 7 percent decline in revenue, as its traditional business of high- to midrange servers running on Sparc processors took a hit. Add to that a steep sell-off of its stock over the past 12 months, falling from about $25 a share earlier in the year to close at $3.02 a share on Friday.

For the embattled tech titan that's lost its allure over the years, … Read more

On today's show, The 404 proudly announces it's most famous guest ever...Shaun White, snowboarding gold medalist and pop culture personality, will come on next Friday to talk about his newest video game. In other news, Firefox unveils a new "private viewing" mode, a son goes Christian Bale on his mother after she deletes his MySpace, and Wikipedia asks for donations.

Dan the Mantern here. Don't ask us how it happened, but Shaun White, yes the Flying Tomato, will join us for next Friday's show. Rolling Stone dubbed White "the coolest kid in America." We can't wait to ask Shaun about the notorious snowboarder-skier rivalry, his favorite video games, and how he's enjoying his stay in the Big Apple. We're going to be doing a lot of work to prepare for Shaun and make sure he'll be comfortable. We've ordered about 20 cubic feet of fake snow and we're installing a gondola between Jeff and Justin's chairs. Now, where to put that jacuzzi full of snow bunnies...

Don't forget: keep sending in that Little Big Planet and MotorStorm box art for a chance to win a copy either game. Also, if you make a 404 Wikipedia page, we might find it in our hearts to hook you up with a copy of Resistance 2. Cheers!