Sean Michael Kerner

From the ‘not far now‘ files: Google Chrome doesn’t have Extensions support yet does it? Actually it does, if you’re running the dev-channel 3.0.195.1 version. The new release has an auto-update mechanism powered by Google Omaha (similar to how Chrome itself gets updated). Firefox users don’t have Omaha, but they have the option of choosing […]

If you use Adobe’s Flash or Acrobat Player applications — and you probably do — you might want to be especially careful on what you click for the next week or so. Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) has issued a critical zero-day advisory for flaws that affect its popular Flash Player (v9.0.159.0 and v10.0.22.87) software for Windows, […]

From the ‘can open source and patents get along?‘ files: Microsoft made waves this week with their GPLv2 contribution of virtualization code. On the other side of the coin, Microsoft continues to take issue with open source vendors over the issue of patents. One vendor that has called on Microsoft to be more open is […]

IBM is expanding its networking products portfolio today with new offerings from Juniper, Cisco and Brocade — a move that enhances Big Blue’s capacity to offer switching gear while also keeping it tied into competitive efforts by giants like Cisco to grab more of the datacenter business. As part of the portfolio expansion, IBM (NYSE: […]

From the ‘you should update‘ files: Mozilla is updating its Firefox 3.x browser to version 3.0.12 for five critical security vulnerabilities. All of the issues have already been addressed in the latest Firefox 3.5.1 update which came out last week. There is one particularly interesting fix in the 3.0.12 update dealing with Flash. According to […]

Is open source good for America? A group of over 70 leading open source vendors thinks so, and they’ve now formed an effort to lobby Washington and to promote open source for government use. The Open Source for America coalition is made up of over 50 member groups including Red Hat, Linux Foundation, Oracle, Sun, […]

Breaking apart a company isn’t easy to do. Just ask Nortel. Networking vendor Nortel is in the process of selling itself off in pieces and is doing a rather good job at it. Last month, Nortel announced a bid from Nokia Siemens for Nortel’s wireless unit worth $675 million. On Monday it announced a stalking […]

From the ‘faster networks‘ files: WAN optimization and app delivery vendor Blue Coat for the first quarter of 2009 was the leader for global market share in the WAN Application Delivery market. That’s no small feat. It’s a claim that Blue Coat stated today in a press release with stats taken from the IDC report, […]

From the ‘good things come to those who wait’ files: One of the biggest tech levers that fuels the Ubuntu community is the Launchpad platform. It’s a collaborative platform that integrates with Ubuntu’s Bazaar (Bzr) version control system to let developers share and host code. Ironically, though Launchpad is a system used to help open […]

Adobe’s Flash is a closed-source technology and is likely to stay that way, but that doesn’t mean that technologies surrounding and supporting Flash can’t be open. Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) today is announcing the open sourcing of two technologies related to the Flash platform — one for its media player, the other for font presentation. The […]

The sell-off of networking vendor Nortel continues with the announcement that its enterprise division is being sold to Avaya for $475 million. The once high-flying Nortel entered into bankruptcy protection at the beginning of 2009. The company has been selling off its assets ever since. As Nortel is currently in bankruptcy, the deal with Avaya […]