Today on the IE Blog, Microsoft revealed that Extended Validation SSL Certificates are now live and supported in Internet Explorer 7.
Microsoft announced EV SSL support today at the RSA show, but the certificates started appearing last month.
EV SSLs have been long-time coming and complete one of the most important visual security cues for Internet Explorer 7 users. Hitherto, the IE 7 address bar flashed yellow for suspect sites and red for those known to pose security risks. For sites using EV SSLs, users would see green, indicating what is supposed to be a safe site.
Microsoft has revamped its fledgling CodePlex community development portal, implementing a handful of new features prioritized by CodePlex users through the Web site's issue-tracking and feedback page.
Among the changes is a new feature allowing visitors to view source code directly on the site, without downloading files to their PCs.
The simplified, online source-code viewing was the single most-requested feature in CodePlex's issue tracker, the mechanism that CodePlex's developers are using to collect feedback. CodePlex users are invited to vote on the issues they consider most critical.
Keeping information secure in this age of laptop-lugging workers is the tech industry's most formidable challenge, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said Tuesday.
Speaking to an annual gathering of 15,000 computer security experts in San Francisco, Gates invoked the metaphor of a medieval castle to explain the problem: Programmers build bigger moats and thicker fortress walls - but they don't bother to protect the corporate crown jewels when members of their fiefdom exit the castle and leave the drawbridge open.
Bo Vesterdorf, the president of the European Union Court of First Instance, revealed this week that he would issue a ruling on Microsoft's appeal of the EU antitrust case by September. That's when Vesterdorf will leave office.
"Obviously we would do our very best to get the case out as soon as at all possible," he said during a legal conference in Brussels, Belgium. "It's a very big case."
The EU found Microsoft in violation of its antitrust laws in 2004, fined the company about $613 million, and required it to make changes to Windows XP. Additionally, the EU required Microsoft to issue full and complete documentation for accessing its sever products. That documentation has yet to be signed off by the EU, however. Microsoft's tardiness resulted in a second $357 million fine that was assessed in July 2006.
In an update that reflected a thaw in Microsoft's approach to some open source projects, Gates said the company's Windows CardSpace identity management metasystem will work with OpenID 2.0, an open source user-driven digital identity framework.
OpenID is a decentralized digital identity system, in which any user's online identity is given by URI, such as a Web address, and can be verified by any server running the protocol.
Web sites that support OpenID are fashioned in such a way that Internet users don't need to create and manage a new account for every site before being granted access; users need only to authenticate with an identity provider that supports OpenID.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev today asked Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to intercede on behalf of a Russian teacher accused of using pirated software in his classroom.
"A teacher, who has dedicated his life to the education of children and who receives a modest salary that does not bear comparison with the salaries of even regular staff in your company, is threatened with detention in Siberian prison camps," read the letter, posted on the Internet site of Gorbachev's charitable foundation www.gorby.ru, which is written in Russian.
"We have great respect for the work of Microsoft's programmers ... and are in no way casting doubt on the principle of punishment for intellectual property violations.
"However, in this case we ask you to show mercy and withdraw your complaint against Alexander Ponosov," the letter read. "This noble step will be enthusiastically received by all those in Russia who use Microsoft products."
Q&A: Chris Capossela, who manages the Microsoft Office System family of products, talks about the products, the experience and the future. Windows Vista and Office 2007 finally saw the light of day on Jan. 30. Chris Capossela, who manages the Microsoft Office System family of products, talked to eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli about the products, the experience and the future.
It has been reported that e-mails in Outlook 2007 are now being rendered in Microsoft Word rather than HTML. Is that correct and, if so, why the change?
So, in Office 2007, by default, when you write or read an email in Outlook, we are using Word as the underlying engine for that. The reason for this is that we have done a lot of work to make Word the best authoring and reading environment possible.
No Microsoft executive had more of a direct impact on Vista than Jim Allchin. Sadly, however, Allchin has now retired: His last day was Wednesday, January 31. "Microsoft is an absolutely amazing company--full of such incredible people," Allchin wrote in a goodbye note to his coworkers and friends. "In fact, when I came to Microsoft, one of the things that struck me the most was just how many smart people there were. I had been around smart people at school and work before, but never so many of them. Not only were they smart though, they had incredible passion for technology, for learning, for improving, and most of all for changing the world using technology to improve people's lives." I'm going to miss Allchin a lot, actually. He's a class act and a great guy who really cared about Windows and the community that grew up around it. Fortunately, he's going out on a high note: Vista is quite a legacy and should fuel the next decade of computing.
If you could face the CEO of Microsoft and ask anything in the world, what would it be? A few Seattle-area minority students got a shot Friday morning at the company's annual Blacks @ Microsoft student day. Despite a 40- minute speech from Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and a lengthy demo of the Zune digital music player's capabilities, the first question from a Tacoma student concerned the software giant's archrival, Apple.
"When the iPhone comes out, how will it affect the sales of the Zune and the different developments coming up for Microsoft?" asked Christopher German, 15, of Stadium High School.
Microsoft has quietly flipped the switch on a new feature in Internet Explorer 7 meant to combat phishing scams. The software giant in early January made a change on its computer systems that allowed Web sites fitted with a new type of security certificate to display a green-filled address bar in IE 7, Markellos Diorinos, a product manager for Windows at Microsoft, said in an interview.
"We have rolled out many of the parts that are required to get it working. We're coming close to the point where all the moving parts are in place," Diorinos said. Microsoft plans to promote the green bar at next week's RSA Conference in San Francisco, an annual security confab kicked off by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.