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GiftCardRescue.com, a company that allows visitors to sell or exchange unused gift cards, announced Monday that it has instituted a new bankruptcy protection policy that will cover customers who purchase gift cards from the company’s site.

According to the company, GiftCardRescue will reimburse a customer’s gift card if the retailer goes bankrupt within a year of the gift card purchase, as long as the retailer is no longer honoring gift cards. Kuadey said his company will cover the cost of the insurance with its own cash reserves and will not pass it on to the retailers or customers.

Gift card sales were one of the hottest buys during last year’s holiday shopping season, but economic troubles mean gift cards may not top the list this year. The National Retail Federation announced last Tuesday that gift card sales are expected to drop 6 percent this holiday season.

GiftCardRescue also announced Monday that it will start keeping tabs on retailers through its GiftCardBlogger blog. The site will will feature updates on retailer bankruptcies and their impact on gift card holders.

“The current economic downturn is causing anxiety among consumers about whether a gift card purchased today will be redeemable tomorrow given the recent surge in bankruptcies by retailers,” Kwame Kuadey, GiftCardRescue’s CEO and founder, said in a statement. “This policy is to reassure our customers that their gift card losses from bankruptcy will be covered.”

As he says, “You get what you pay for.” Anyone who still believes open source is a hippie phenomenon hasn’t been paying attention. Money fuels Linux. Money fuels Apache. And so on.

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The return on this open-source financial investment may not come directly in the form of royalties or license fees for most, but it is there. Otherwise the IBMs and Red Hats of the world wouldn’t be investing so heavily in open source. Open source is about freedom, but it’s more about the freedom to serve customers and crush competitors than many suspect.

The gist of the research? Open-source developers are largely salaried to be such, at least on the most heavily used/developed projects. Joe gives good reasons for this:

I blogged Evangelia Berdou’s Ph.D. thesis, “Managing the Bazaar: Commercialization and peripheral participation in mature, community-led Free/Open source software projects”, way back in March, but apparently a few others (like OStatic and Joe Brockmeier at ZDNet) just came across it, as they’ve written up interesting perspectives on the research.

Core contributions require more time and expertise than peripheral contributions.
Core contributors are desirable employees. Everyone wants to hire the contributors who can and do influence the projects.
Volunteers can work on “peripheral” aspects of projects that can be performed in volunteer-sized chunks of time. Which is to say, a few hours a week on average.

Mobile app maker Frengo is now making apps for popular social networks (Facebook, Hi5, etc.) that allow connections between networks. The Flirtable app, for example, allows users on one social network to flirt with users on another. The Lolz app, likewise, lets users share LOLcat images (sadly, not very funny ones) across networks.

For example, when you use the Flirtable dating app, you’re accessing all the app’s users no matter what network they’re on. In a very cool twist, if you use the Flirtable app to send a message or a gift to another user, that communication can reach their social profile page (usually, their “wall”) even if they’re on another network from you.

I’m happy to see efforts like this, since they make social apps more about people, less about the companies running their networks. And I think many execs at social networks actually get this. The power of joining connected groups together is called the network effect, after all.

I'm on Facebook, but Mia may not be. (Image has been edited.)

See also: The Social Graph API, as explained by David Glazer at Google.

Frengo is using OpenSocial as a standard for building the apps, but OpenSocial doesn’t address friend portability or cross-network messaging. Frengo is building that capability into its widgets so that a user on a smaller network who adds one of its apps will join the ad-hoc group of users from other networks that are using the same app elsewhere.

CEO Mahi de Silva admits that “What we do may not appear to be aligned with the business goals of social networks.” Frengo loosens up the lock-in of social networks. De Silva believes that what Frengo does is still within the terms of service of the social networks, if only just. And users would probably agree with de Silva that connecting social networks together raises the value of all of them — even the big networks that would appear to have the most to lose.

Monday: the quick and simple way to create a letterhead in Word.

Along with your version of Windows, processor type and speed, and installed RAM, you see your Windows ID, and in Vista, the computer and network names. (In XP this information is listed under the Computer Name tab.) In Vista, links in the left pane lead to Device Manager, and the Remote, System Protection, and Advanced tabs of the XP System Properties dialog box. At the bottom of the left pane are links to the Windows Update, Windows Security Center, and Performance Information and Tools Control Panel applets.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

Vista's System Properties dialog box shows basic information about your PC.

This and other basic information about your system is easy to find, but how do you find the date Windows was originally installed, how long since the last restart, or the model number of your display adapter? For this information you may have to dig a little deeper.

System info in XP’s Help and Support Center
When something goes wrong with Windows, usually the last place I would look for help is the Help and Support Center. One useful feature in the XP version of the program is its ability to jump quickly between views of your system information. Open the app by clicking Start > Help and Support. Select “Use Tools to view your computer information and diagnose problems,” and then choose a category under Tools in the left pane, such as My Computer Information. Click one of the options in the right pane, such as “View general system information about this computer” or “View the status of my system hardware and software.” Links in the entries let you run various diagnostic utilities directly from the help app, or display more information.

Go directly to the source with Systeminfo and System Information
You’ll find the same and more information without the colorful trimmings by running either the Systeminfo command-line utility (not available in XP Home) or System Information. To open Systeminfo, click Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt, type systeminfo, and press Enter. Among the useful system data the program displays are the date Windows was installed on the PC, the time the current session started, and the number of hot fixes installed. Type exit and press Enter to close the command-prompt window

(Credit:
Microsoft)

To open System Information in XP, click Start > Run, type msinfo32.exe, and press Enter; in Vista, press the Windows key, type msinfo32.exe, and press Enter. Get the inside scoop on your hardware and software by selecting an entry in the left pane (drilling down to the specific device or program), and scrolling through the listings in the right pane. For example, you can view the contents of the Internet Explorer cache in XP by selecting Internet Settings > Internet Explorer > Cache > List of Objects. You’ll also find a list of Problem Devices under Storage. Unfortunately, the copy of System Information on my Vista PC doesn’t include the Internet Settings and Applications categories.

The fast way to open System Properties
The standard facts and figures about your PC are listed in System Properties. Most people get their by right-clicking My Computer (in XP) or Computer (in Vista) and choosing Properties. A faster way to open this dialog box is by pressing the Windows key (or Ctrl-Esc on keyboards without this key) and Break. Another option is to press Start > Run (in XP) or the Windows key (in Vista), type sysdm.cpl, and press Enter.

The Performance tab shows your CPU and page-file use in real time, as well as other information about your system’s memory use. Vista’s Task Manager adds a Services tab, as well as a link to the separate Services applet. Lifehacker provides a great tutorial on using Task Manager to reclaim memory and perform other system-maintenance operations.

How much RAM is installed in your PC? How fast is its processor? How much unused space is on its hard drive?

The app of what’s happening now
I associate Windows’ Task Manager applet with trouble because it seems the only times I open the program are when something has gone wrong. There’s no better way to get a snapshot of your system in a jiffy, though. To open it, press Ctrl-Shift-Break, or right-click the taskbar and choose Task Manager. In XP, you can also click Start > Run, type taskmgr.exe, and press Enter, and in Vista, you can open the program by pressing the Windows key, typing taskmgr.exe, and pressing Enter.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

Management-app shortcuts
Anyone who has used Windows for a while has visited the two applets containing the details about their hardware and software: Device Manager, and its big brother, the Computer Management console, which is simply a holder for “snap-ins”, or ActiveX controls that perform some function. Open Device Manager by clicking Start > Run (in XP) or pressing the Windows key (in Vista), typing devmgmt.msc, and pressing Enter. Open the entire console by typing compmgmt.msc from the same Run window. Select an item in the left pane to view information about it in the right window, or double-click it (or right-click it and choose Properties) to open its Properties dialog box.

The mother lode of system information in the Computer Management console is the Event Viewer, which I described in a previous post. You can also view the services running on your PC (the same information that’s displayed when you click the Services tab in Vista’s Task Manager). Victor Laurie provides a nice primer on the console’s various snap-ins.

Windows XP's System Information utility makes it easy to find a range of information about your PC.

The Performance tab of Windows' Task Manager applet gives a real-time look at your system.

Best Buy does have some things going for it that its rivals don’t. For one, it’s cornered the market as the place to shop for a PC at retail. It’s the only big-box retailer that offers every single major PC brand–Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo, Apple, Sony, Toshiba, and Acer.

But it’s only a slight comfort because Best Buy’s chief competitors aren’t handling the current situation nearly as gracefully. Circuit City is having a rough time of it, and CompUSA was killed off late last year, only to be resurrected in January by Systemax.

The largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. posted earnings of $737 million, which comes out to $1.71 per share. Analysts were expecting $1.65 per share. Fourth-quarter earnings per share were also significantly better than the $1.55 posted the same quarter a year ago.

Best Buy reported its fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday and the results were surprisingly good.

Wednesday’s results sent Best Buy shares up 8 percent in pre-market trading, but they fell back down the same day that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said a U.S. recession “is possible.” But for CE makers and analysts watching consumer spending habits, Best Buy’s earnings must be somewhat comforting since it appears, at least through the end of March, that people are still shopping for what are essentially luxury goods–TVs, GPS systems, cameras, phones, and notebook PCs.

For the fiscal year, revenue was also up 11 percent over a year earlier to reach $40 billion, which Best Buy said was aided by the opening of 137 new retail outlets worldwide.

Also included is a wash of data for each attraction. To find out more about any part of the park, there’s a little purple Mickey Mouse head you can click on that will give you a written description of the ride, along with photos and, in some cases, even videos. Some descriptions are a little more kid-oriented, with music and special effects like Cinderella Castle, which sparkles when you roll your mouse over it. There are also links on each ride to help you book a vacation, or jump you to a special page in Google Earth’s built-in Web browser.

To see the new layer in 3D you’ll need the latest version of Google Earth. I’m expecting this to make its way over to Google Maps in a few weeks with that new browser plug-in.

This morning, users of the software mapping tool will find a brand new layer that features an experience Bruce Polderman, Google Earth’s product manager, says “pushed the user experience of both 3D models and KML to new heights.” The layer has the entire theme park modeled in 3D, right down to some of the tiniest details like trees, food carts, and even park maps the size of a stop sign.

Explore all the nooks and crannies of Disney World with Google Earth's new layer–right down to the rides.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Not everything in the park is modeled in 3D, but according to Polderman there are well over 5,000 objects that have made their way in there. Not featured in 3D are the spanning parking lots, which are actually larger than the entire park when viewed from above.

Too cheap to take your kids on a vacation to Orlando to see Disney World? Now you can just load up Google Earth instead.

As for the other deal, McAfee gets a data loss prevention technology leader at the network to complement its existing endpoint offering based upon its Onigma purchase in 2006. While Reconnex doesn’t have the market swagger of Vontu, McAfee paid $46 million while Symantec forked over $350 million for Vontu. With Reconnex, Onigma, and SafeBoot in tow, McAfee has a trifecta to approach the data privacy/security market.

I thought business was supposed to slow down in the summer. I guess not. First Brocade Communications Systems buys Foundry Networks. Then last week, Siemens sold off 51 percent of its Siemens Enterprise Communications (SEN) division to the Gores Group, which will combine this entity with Enterasys Networks. McAfee then closed last week with its acquisition of Reconnex.

Hmm, all this activity and it’s only the beginning of August. There’s bound to be a lot more activity before the leaves start falling from the trees.

The combination of SEN and Enterasys was clearly a push for scale. Enterasys is actually one of the best-kept secrets in enterprise networking, with a full line of switching, routing, and security products. Combined with Siemens voice and unified communications products, this new entity may be positioned to compete with Cisco Systems on the new “triple play” networking front (i.e. voice, video, and data). A tough road for sure, but it seems clear that scale matters in networking and the combined entity now boasts global operations and multibillion dollars in revenue.

iPhone-style devices with Nvdia’s Tegra APX (or Tegra 600) incorporate most of the functionality of a PC. And Nvidia is building all of the core electronics that will run a mobile Internet device, not just the graphics component. (This Nvidia Mobile Device page shows the Tegra 600 series and Tegra APX.)

(Credit:
Nvidia)

Devices–according to Nvidia’s thinking at least–will also be designed to run 720p HDTV video for 10 hours–one of the marquee features that Nvidia will be emphasizing. The company has demonstrated the prototype Tegra APX-based device plugged into a large screen TV–via a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connector–playing high-definition movies with the same fluidity and resolution as you get from a big HDTV box or bigger computer.

(See CNET Reviews video of the phone.)

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Nvidia’s goal is to pack as much processing punch as possible into a few-hundred-milliwatt power envelope. Notebook PC processors typically operate in power envelopes between 10 and 35 watts.

Though the prototype phone (actually a development platform) is quite a bit thicker than a real “thin” phone that a handset provider would bring out at some point, the prototype runs on top of Windows Mobile, as it would presumably in a commercial device.

In the spring, Nvidia demonstrated its Tegra chip-based mobile phone prototype to me and pretty much anyone in the media who made a visit to its Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters.

Images shown on Nvidia Mobile Devices Web page.

Rumors of an
iPhone-style Microsoft phone running on Nvidia silicon add heft, in part, to what Nvidia has been talking about since early this year.

And what does Nvidia bring to the table? The master of faster graphics processors wants to apply its chip know-how to juice up the mobile Internet device market and the Windows Mobile interface. After a decade of pumping up PC performance, Nvidia is betting a big part of its future on boosting graphics performance in fit-in-your-pocket mobile Internet devices, or MIDs.

Updated on November 25 at 11:00 a.m. with correction about Intel Moorestown chip and additional comments at bottom.

Additional comments on two points: One, correction on Moorestown. As a reader pointed out, Intel’s upcoming Moorestown is not a single-chip device. It is still at 2-chip solution. Two, about Tegra: another reader commented that Tegra is based on the ARM11 (shipping in products now), which is “older” than the Cortex-A8 class OMAP products from Texas Instruments.

The platform that Nvidia is demonstrating goes far beyond the staid, pin-striped Windows Mobile that is used today. Nvidia has been showing finger-flick-and-roll screens and accelerometer-based reorienting 720p video.

Tegra is different from Intel’s Atom processor platform–which is offered as a processor and a separate chipset–because Nvidia integrates everything onto one piece of silicon. This makes it more akin to Texas Instruments’ OMAP processors or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon. (See “Additional Comments” below with corrected statement on Moorestown.)

Nvidia has made it clear that the chip platform was targeted at Windows Mobile–a point that an Nvidia representative reiterated Monday.

But to the user, the biggest difference will be Microsoft’s Mobile Windows interface and what can happen when there’s Nvidia GeForce graphics silicon pushing everything around.

Nvidia prototype phone using Tegra APX chip

This small browser extension will go over everyone’s ratings and pull out bits and pieces it finds noteworthy based on a similar words that pop up in rated reviews. The developer says it currently works the best on electronics items but that other items will soon work better with the automation. Trying to use it on something like books, movies or CDs (all Amazon’s bread and butter sales) will simply give you an error message.

[found on Makeuseof]

Once Pluribo is installed, any electronic item (and soon other things) on Amazon.com will be analyzed based on user reviews. The good and the bad will be picked out and charted for the sake of your eyes (and time).

I’m hoping future iterations will forgo the need for you to install anything and instead make use of the sidebar or use an IFrame instead. As it stands you’ll need to have
Firefox to give this one a spin.

One thing that sets tools like Pluribo apart from human-powered systems is that it’s doing all the number crunching per user request, meaning the synopsis won’t be outdated or need to be redone at a later date. Other attempts at review aggregation for consumer electronics include Pricegrabber and Retrevo which both grab professional and user reviews for easy parsing; however, neither will chart out those reviews.

This got me thinking about how wonderful this would be for some news tracking services. For example, Google News will pull up thousands of related headlines to major stories, but if you want to quickly digest it you’ll have to depend on a site that will summarize the content. A tool like Pluribo could simply go through each article and pull out keywords. Such a task for every news story requires a seriously good analysis engine–not to mention a user understanding of potential error, but the potential here is huge.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

I gave it a spin on several electronics I own, and it came up with fantastic results. One of them in particular, an iPod nano, was one of the better examples of how the tool can be useful. In its analysis, it showed that one of the most reoccurring user complaints was scratching, while nearly everyone else raved over its features and overall design. Not a bad take considering it parsed over 700 reviews in just a few seconds. Better yet, I didn’t have to read any of them.

When I’m parsing product reviews on Amazon.com I usually look at two things after the price tag: the rating and how many people have reviewed it. This simple system tends to breaks down when it comes time to dig deeper into those sometimes thousands of reviews, which is where Pluribo comes in handy.

CODA 2go will be a real test of Salesforce.com’s notion of a platform-as-a-service (Force.com). It’s a large-scale, transaction-oriented application, which is a step beyond the forms-oriented roots of Salesforce.

CODA is claiming that 2go will be the “most functionally advanced on-demand accounting application available.” At this point there aren’t many comparables. Workday has entered the ring. NetSuite offers financials as part of its on-demand suite, and recently added real-time management and consolidation capabilities for companies that are multinational or have multiple subsidiaries.

Salesforce.com is finally getting beyond its CRM roots. At Dreamforce Europe in London on May 7th, CODA is launching CODA 2go, an enterprise accounting system built on the Force.com platform and integrated with the Salesforce CRM application. CODA 2go will handle revenue and financial management and procurement.

The enterprise giants SAP and Oracle have not yet launched multi-tenant, on demand solutions for financials. SAP’s Business ByDesign, an on-demand suite for the mid-market in private beta, will cover financials and multiple industries.