The paid support is a sign that Amazon’s hosted computing is ramping up to take on a broader swath of clients, including large businesses.

Looking to take on more demanding customers, Amazon Web Services on Thursday rolled out two paid-support plans that give customers access to its engineers to resolve glitches.

Right now, Amazon offers pay-as-you-go pricing for its hosted services. Customers pay for how much they use the service. To get support for technical problems, they need to go to free forums.

The company said it will offer two levels of support–gold and silver–for a fixed annual fee or a percentage of customers’ total usage of its services. The support plans are available for its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Simple Storage Service (S3), and Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS). For more details on the terms, click here.

Update on Friday: Link added to Amazon Web Services support terms and costs.

Initially, Amazon aimed the hosted service at Web start-ups, but it’s signing on business customers too. BusinessWeek reported earlier this week that The New York Times and Nasdaq are now customers.

“Guaranteed support will also allow us to develop even more substantial applications using Amazon Web Services, knowing that Amazon is there to support us,” Paul Horvath, chief technology officer of health care form-processing company TC3 Health, said in a statement.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, said essentially the same thing over the summer–the social network’s focus is on growth.

For the full interview, including Zuckerberg’s take on Facebook’s Windows Live Search deal, its international growth, and the possibility of an IPO, see ” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: Our focus is growth, not revenue.”

He also made it clear who’s boss: “Me!”

Maybe it’s advice he heard from a career counselor at Harvard and took to heart: Do what you love, and the money will follow. For now, what Mark Zuckerberg wants most for Facebook is to see it grow and grow and grow some more, without too much fretting over the bottom line.

(Credit:
Dan Farber/CNET News)

Of course, it could be less a philosophical matter than a practical one for a site that’s still sketching out its plans for making money to match its popularity. And bless his heart, even in a tanking global economy, Zuckerberg suggests there’s plenty of time for that. He elaborates:

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg at the D6 conference in May.

On Friday, Zuckerberg will be taking part in a “fireside chat” at the Future of Web Apps conference in London.

How do the two executives divvy up their responsibilities? Zuckerberg said of Sandberg, who joined Facebook about six months ago:

But what every great Internet company has done is to figure out a way to make money that has to match to what they are doing on the site. I don’t think social networks can be monetized in the same way that search did. But on both sites people find information valuable. I’m pretty sure that we will find an analogous business model. But we are experimenting already. One group is very focused on targeting; another part is focused on social recommendation from your friends. In three years from now we have to figure out what the optimum model is.

In an interview with a blogger for the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Facebook’s co-founder and CEO minced no words on the matter: “Growth is primary, revenue is secondary.”

Update 11:45 a.m. PST: This blog incorrectly described part of what the link downloads. It downloads a Trojan horse. The link does not take viewers to a video.

Moving beyond Valentine’s Day as a social-engineering theme, online criminals have started sending out e-mail with a supposed link to a recent interview with Sen. Hillary Clinton. Instead of a video, the link downloads a Trojan horse onto the viewer’s computer. Security experts predict 2008 presidential election e-mails and phishing sites will continue throughout the year.

Often the malicious software is not within a video, but within the download link, as is the case here. Symantec says the link embedded within the e-mail downloads a suspect file, “mpg.exe,” which is a Trojan downloader. This downloader then downloads inst241.exe, a file that Symantec detects as Trojan.Srizbi.

Portishead's Third is one of the best-sounding CDs I've heard in years.

(Credit: Portishead 2008, design by Marc Bessant)

The first one was Planet of Ice by Seattle band Minus the Bear. I’ve read good things about this band for years, but the descriptions of this 2007 album–it’s apparently more progressive and “math”-y than their previous releases–finally got me to make the purchase.

Musically it’s a fantastic achievement, one of the most progressive and interesting modern rock albums I’ve heard since Mirrored by Battles, which also came out in 2007. Odd time signatures, check. Guitar synths, check. Glitchy electronic breaks, check. Self-consciously repetitive pentatonic guitar riffs, check. Long songs with multiple parts and at least one false ending (the last song, “Lotus”), check. It reminded me of 70s progressive guitar/keyboard bands like Yes and Styx, but without the high-pitched vocals and lyrical pretentiousness. My wife heard some Police influence, and I have to mention Sunny Day Real Estate and Rush as well. It would be a great driving record. I’d love to hear the band live.

But as engaging as the music was, about 2/3ds of the way through the album I found myself tuning out, to the point where I had to force myself to pay attention. Some of my reaction was probably related to composition and album sequencing and instrument choice–it’s hard to stay engaged through 10 songs that feature the same types of sounds–but the production played a part. The sound seemed to be concentrated in the middle frequencies, with a lot going on in three distinct EQ bands and very little going on outside those frequencies–there was almost no super-low-end and very little audible bass guitar or bass synth, for example. The overall tracks sounded compressed, with no peaks or valleys in volume. The stereo effects were not particularly noteworthy. In other words, the music was interesting and intricate, but the production was…well…a bit dull.

Then I put on Portishead’s
Third, the group’s first record in 10 years, and remembered what incredible production can sound like. I have good memories of their first album, 1994’s Dummy, which seemed to be the universal San Francisco soundtrack that year, but their second self-titled release left me cold for some reason–I think it was trying too hard to sound aggressive and ended up sounding monotonous. But Third is not only compositionally solid, with a pleasing variety of instruments and moods and tempos, but it’s the best-sounding CD I’ve heard in years–the last time production impressed me this much was with Radiohead’s Kid A in 2001 (their more recent records sound just as good, but I’ve come to expect it from them so am not surprised).

On Third, every audible frequency is represented. The stereo separation is incredibly wide–like listening to analog tape in a studio setting. (I wonder if they recorded to tape before moving into a digital workstation.) Many sounds are placed very precisely in the stereo field, while others–particularly Beth Gibbons’ voice–are spread across the field and hard to place, as they should be. Some sounds are very dry and therefore seem to come forward, while others have enough reverb to sound like they’re further back–including some of the drums, which is unusual but worked perfectly. There were lots of specific effects that weren’t particularly complicated or hard to accomplish, but very effective–one repeated beat in “Machine Gun,” for example, is dry on one side of the stereo field and duplicated with a slapback echo on the other.

The end result: Third was unignorable. Instead of being forced to rouse myself, I was constantly drawn into the sound. Instead of lying back on the couch, I sat up straight a couple times to try and figure out what was going on, and finally stayed sitting so I could keep my head in the perfect stereo sweet spot. I couldn’t have carried on a conversation over it. It demanded attention.

For what it’s worth, I agree with this Salon article arguing that Portishead’s new album puts the final nail in the coffin of trip-hop, the genre the band helped invent back in the 1990s. But unlike the Salon writer, I think that’s a great thing–the genre was confined to a half dozen acts, overhyped and played out almost from the moment it appeared, and retreading that old ground 10 years later would have been predictable and disappointing.

Terry Childs, a network administrator for the city of San Francisco, was jailed July 13 on four felony charges of taking control of the city’s computer network and locking administrators out. He eventually gave up the passwords to the Mayor in a secret jail-cell meeting a week later.

Things would have been different if the city had been able to use Lanxoma, software used to authorize and monitor activities of IT administrators, according to Manoj Patel, chief executive of Lanxoma creator Unity Solutions. The product was launched Monday at DemoFall.

The software records everything IT workers do while having privileged access and ensures that they can’t do anything without first being authorized. It logs every action they take, including recording their keystrokes.

The insider threat is the biggest of the threats facing corporate and large-scale networks, and IT workers have the most power to do damage because they have access to everything on the network, according to Patel. Enforcement is key, he said, adding that not every IT worker needs free reign of the network.

“It can’t stop (the action), but it creates evidence that can be used to prosecute a worker,” he said. “Just like a video camera. It doesn’t prevent the break-in,” but it helps the investigation.

To mark this historic moment–33 years in the making–we’ve been combing through our video archives to find some memorable stuff.

• Origin of PC clones
At a 2001 event celebrating the 20th anniversary of the personal computer, Gates and Compaq founder Rod Canion reflect on the creation of the modern PC business.

•  Control-alt-delete…gulp
At the same 2001 event, IBM engineer Dave Bradley talks about how the keystroke came to be, quipping that, though he invented it, Gates made it famous. The best part of this video is the look on Gates’ face after Bradley’s comment.

• Hits and misses
Nobody’s perfect, not even Gates.

• End of an era, ha ha ha
At CES 2008, Gates and friends debuted a comical look at what life would be like as his last day approaches. U2’s Bono, actor George Clooney, and director Steven Spielberg get some laughs at Gates’ expense.

• Shifting roles
Here’s a look back at Gates’ career, with highlights from recent speeches.

• On outflanking rivals
Gates talks at CES 2008 about how Microsoft can beat rivals as software moves to the phone, TV, other devices.

• The future of tech
In the coming years, the conference table, the whiteboard…everything will be a computer, Gates says in October 2007.

• Microsoft versus Apple
At CES 2007, Gates talks about how Microsoft would trump Apple in the digital living room.

• Gates going, but slowly
In June 2006, Microsoft’s co-founder was already planning for a different future for himself.

• Ballmer’s tearful good-bye
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave Gates a teary thank-you as the founder said farewell to company employees at a town hall meeting Friday in Redmond, Wash.

See also:
Special Report: For Bill Gates, the next phase begins

A serious new flaw was disclosed on Thursday that affects the latest versions of Apple’s QuickTime and iTunes applications.

The National Vulnerability Database entry CVE-2008-4116 describes a heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability within Apple’s QuickTime 7.5.5 and iTunes 8.0 programs.

To infect a computer, a maliciously coded long-type attribute within a QuickTime tag might be placed on a Web page, or within a .mp4 or .mov file. This could allow remote attackers to crash the applications (known as a denial of service) or possibly execute arbitrary code on a compromised computer.

The announcement comes one week after Apple patched nine security flaws in its media player and fixed Windows Vista problems within its recently updated online music service.

At the moment, there is no recommended workaround or patch available for the code exploit.

Apple did not reply to a request for comment.

1. The space is on fire. ArcSight revenue was up about 75 percent year over year–from just under $40 million to just under $70 million. A testament to ArcSight? Absolutely, but the whole log management space (along with its security and compliance analysis aspects) are as hot as can be. ArcSight is one of the boats in this rising tide.

2. ArcSight makes the short list. Yes, the competition is steep. Look for IBM to really jump into this market with both feet in 2008, along with HP and partner SenSage. Nevertheless, ArcSight has established itself as a market leader, and its IPO bolsters this position with financial transparency. ArcSight should get into every enterprise bake-off.

3. The next battle is down market. OK, so ArcSight will fight with EMC, HP, and IBM in the enterprise, but who will win in the globally rich SMB space? This market will be dominated by turnkey appliances and managed services. ArcSight may want to use some of the $51 million it garnered through its IPO to build products and channels for the mid-market.

Some programs and services don’t release their connections to Registry keys when a user logs off. This can cause problems when the person tries to log onto another PC connected to the same company network, but mainly it just adds to the time it takes XP to shut down.

Before you can download the program, you have to let Microsoft validate your copy of Windows. (The program also works with Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003.) To install the program automatically, you have to have a copy of Windows Installer 2.0 on your system. Otherwise you can install it manually: Open a command prompt (Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt), type cd \program files\uphclean, press Enter, type uphclean -install, and press Enter again. The program will start automatically the next time the system boots. Type exit and press Enter once more to close the command-prompt window.

Bonus shutdown-troubleshooting tip
The other day I decided for no good reason that it was time to update my 6-year-old XP system’s video driver. I just happened to be visiting my display adapter’s entry in Device Manager (right-click My Computer, choose Manage > Device Manager, double-click the entry under Display adapters, and select the Driver tab) and noticed that the driver was almost 5 years old. The fact that the adapter itself was 6 years old never crossed my mind.

(Quick aside: Is six years about as much useful life as you can expect from a PC? This system has been through the ringer since I use it as one of my test machines. But I’ve got two radios that are more than 20 years old, and they work just fine. Still, it may be time to retire this graybeard before it retires on me.)

I checked the vendor’s download site and saw that the company recommended a replacement driver for that ancient model. The lure of free software was irresistible.

After I downloaded and installed the new driver, everything seemed to be working just fine, until I shut down Windows. That’s when the PC restarted unexpectedly. I recognized this as a symptom of trouble, and sure enough, when Windows reloaded it ran a disk check. Though the check didn’t indicate any disk errors, I was warned that Windows had recovered from a “serious error.”

I started the troubleshooting process by stopping the automatic restarts: Right-click My Computer, choose Properties > Advanced, click Settings under Startup and Recovery, and uncheck Automatically restart. The next time I shut down I saw the blue screen displaying the error codes. A Web search of the code confirmed my suspicions, though a bad video driver was only one of several possibilities as the source of this error code.

Uncheck ‘Automatically restart’ in Windows XP’s Startup and Recovery dialog box to view the error code causing the shutdown problem.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

Using XP’s Roll Back Driver option didn’t fix the problem, so I chose Uninstall instead. The next time I restarted XP, it started at the video adapter’s lowest resolution, but after I readjusted it to the previous setting, the display appeared unchanged. When I reopened the display adapter’s entry in Device Manager, it was back to the original driver version, but the shutdown error disappeared, and Disk Check didn’t run the next time XP started.

Like they say, don’t try fixing what ain’t broke.

Monday: backup online for free.

Mark Shuttleworth points to an excellent way to let Ubuntu Linux newbies give it a try without leaving the comfort of their Windows machines:

…I was absolutely delighted with the way Agostino Russo and Evan Dandrea steered the Windows-native installer for Ubuntu into 8.04 LTS. What I think is really classy about it is the way it uses the Windows Boot Manager sensibly to offer you the Ubuntu option. If I was a Windows user who was intrigued but nervous about Linux, this would be a really great way to get a taste of it, at low risk. Being able to install and uninstall a Linux OS as if it were a Windows app is a brilliant innovation.

Indeed. Most of the open-source software I use (I mean, besides Google and its ilk) is desktop software that runs on the proprietary
Mac OS X operating system. Windows and OS X are the secret Trojan Horses of open-source software. As more and more great software is written to run on these platforms (as well as Linux, of course), a greater number of people will encounter open source and will embrace it, not because it’s open source, but rather because it works.

Until the day when all software is open source, there are the many days when it’s not.