Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 17th February 2009
12 COMMENTS 
Mircea Goia, Next Web US Webtipr
Get the popcorn and let’s watch the battle. The court battle, that is, because The Pirate Bay (should I put the link to their site or not?) was finally dragged to the court this Monday by the Swedish authorities, The Guardian says.
The Pirate Bay is the most known torrent (BitTorrent) tracker out there (over one million of them and 22 million users). As we all know, many of these torrents are illegal because it allows to download free software/music/games for which you would otherwise have to pay.
The Pirate Bay doesn’t host any of these free media but it indexes (like Google does) the torrents which tracks to these media. It indexes also legally downloadable media (again, like Google does).
The lawsuit is led by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and they are claiming 100 million dollars in damage. The founders of The Pirate Bay – Fredik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi – could face two years in prison. But that’s not all. The dotcom millionaire Carl Lundström, one of the donors of The Pirate Bay, is also charged.
The Swedish police and the US government wanted repeteadly to shut down the service but without much success.
Could this trial be the end on The Pirate Bay, at last?
UPDATE
According to TorrentFreak 50% of the charges against The Pirate Bay were dropped in the second day of the trial. Fredrik Neij, one of the founders, said that the prosecution misunderstood the technology, and told the court that the evidence doesn’t show that the Pirate Bay’s trackers are used.
So, the prosecutor had o drop all charges relating to “assisting copyright infringement”, so the remaining charges are simply ‘assisting making available’. “Everything related to reproduction will be removed from the claim,” he said.
Let’s see what the next day will bring up…
Written on 20th January 2009
5 COMMENTS
Mircea Goia, Next Web US Webtipr
The Magento team (which is behind the pretty popular e-commerce software MagentoCommerce) is excited to start the New Year with a European tour with stops in the Netherlands, France, and Germany. This is a great opportunity for them to engage with the innovative and enthusiastic members of their European community.
They look forward to hearing from you and learning about how Magento can become a part of your toolbox and online eCommerce operations.
Visit the links provided to get information on how you can be a part of the discussion.
- January 27, 2009 – Utrecht, Netherlands
- February 2, 2009 – Paris, France
- February 3, 2009 – Paris, France
- February 5, 2009 – Leipzig, Germany
MagentoCommerce is an open-source e-commerce software developed by Varien (Varien is located in Los Angeles, USA and was established in 2001).
It’s a PHP/MySQL solution with a new approach to online e-commerce (you have try it to see it – especially the administration section).
So far, the software was downloaded more than 600,000 times and it was declared the Best New Project by the community at SourceForget.net 2008 Community Choice Awards.
MagentoCommerce’s direct competitors includes Zencart, Cubecart, osCommerce and other open-source e-commerce software.
Written on 9th January 2009
6 COMMENTS
Srikanth AD, Web Designer, Search Engine Optimizer and Google Devotee
Can text, image, video or any other file types be recovered once deleted permanently?
If you still panic about how to recover an accidentally deleted file, take a deep breath to probe further.
What actually happens when you delete a file?
When you delete a file from the computer memory it doesn’t get erased instantly. The file gets completely erased from the hard disk only when it’s over-written by a new file.
When we click ‘Empty Recycle Bin’ the file doesn’t get deleted. Windows just changes the files path and name to indicate the space it occupied is no longer needed and is available for use. Any time the Operating System needs space for any other file it may be overwritten. Thus, every time your computer writes information to your hard drive your chances of recovering the file go down.
Until the file gets overwritten by the Operating System it still exists on the hard disk and is fully recoverable by using file recovery utilities.
Undelete Plus is one such recovery tool which enables you to recover files that have been evacuated from the recycle bin, in a DOS window or from a network drive.
It works under Win 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 operating systems and supports all Windows file systems for hard and floppy drives including FAT12/16/32,NTFS/NTFS5 and image recovery from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Secure Digital cards.
The program scans a selected drive and delivers the list of files that can be recovered along with the file type, folder path and the status for each file (very good, good, bad etc.) indicating the chances of complete recovery which makes the job to find and recover a specific file easier.
Written on 31st December 2008
6 COMMENTS
Mircea Goia, Next Web US Webtipr
Rumor has it (here and here) that Microsoft is preparing for a worldwide mass layoff sometime in January.
The software giant has about 91,000 workers around the world and many of them are contractors, if Microsoft follows the typical pattern for corporate layoffs, it’s likely that the contractors will be hit first. The plan would be to layoff between 10% and 17% of the entire workforce in its worldwide army. For Microsoft, a layoff of this size would not be a small cut: as many as 10,000 to 15,000 workers would get the pink slip.
Microsoft’s layoff numbers will make a sizeable addition to the Techcrunch layoff tracker, and that will send a good signal to Wall Street. Since currently MSFT stock is in a free-fall along with other tech stocks, the company probably would want to make its cuts before the Q2 earning report is released on Jan 22.
Which MSFT division will be the hardest hit? We don’t know yet, MSN could be one, since it is not exactly the shining star in the Microsoft constellation. But Microsoft Europe, Middle East, and Africa might not be spared either.
If the rumor becomes reality, then Microsoft will find itself in the same league as Google and Yahoo, both of whom had to layoff large numbers of employees in the past year.
If the worldwide economic mess continues into 2009, then we might even see the entire MSFT empire collapsing and vanishing from the face of the Earth. Then Linux will declare “game over!” at last!
Ok, I was joking in the last sentences. I hope you all will have a Happy New Year and best of luck to MSFT employees who will be axed if the rumor is true!
Written on 9th October 2008
11 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
You’ve probably heard of Wakoopa before, it is one of those names that make you think… What??? WaWhat? But afterwards you’ll remember it. It gets more tough when you have to explain what they do. Up until now Wakoopa has been a popular tool for the more technical gifted among us (formerly known as nerds) who use the service to track their software usage and to discover new software and games. Now Wakoopa broadens its audience to all web savvies by tracking web apps.
Should you buy that pro account or not?
The trend of desktop software finding web equivalents has started some years ago, and really catched on the last couple of months. The “Cloud” has become Buzzword no.1. Therefore it’s the obvious move for Wakoopa.
Let’s take a closer look at what this means. First of all, you’ll get insight in your own usage of several services. Are you as much on Twitter as you say you are? Should you buy a Flickr pro account? What is the social network you use the most? Wakoopa knows.
Transparency in the web app market
But wait, there’s more! If Wakoopa is able to get a critical mass, it will reflect the pulse of all popular and unpopular web apps. Nowadays, VC’s, journalists, and bloggers depend on the press releases of startups and crappy Alexa ratings to get an idea of how popular a service is. Wakoopa could be the ultimate resource to discover new hot web apps (and the ones that are heading straight for the deadpool).
Recommendation Engine
Furthermore, Wakoopa is working on an improved version of their recommendation engine. They’ve hired two recommendation experts to get this done. According to founder Wouter Broekhof the engine is already in the testing phase. With the new data flowing in from web apps they will be able to give personalized recommendation on the use of your software, for desktop as well as web applications.
Are they tracking porn sites as well?
A friend of mine recently admitted to only use Safari to fulfill his online adult needs. He also uses Wakoopa…, you do the math. When I heard Wakoopa started tracking web apps, I realized privacy-related issues would become even more relevant. Especially since your Wakoopa profile page shows up high in the search results. How do we know Wakoopa doesn’t track sites or web apps we rather keep private?
Well, to ease your mind: Wakoopa Lead Developer Menno van der Sman told me Wakoopa only tracks tools that are mentioned in Crunchbase, and they filtered out sites like YouPorn.
Disclosure: Wakoopa is our sponsor
Written on 3rd July 2008
4 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Our – really beloved sponsor – Wakoopa (the Last.fm of software) has launched some new widgets today. From now on, it’s possible to express yourself by showing off your software usage. To let people know you’re the Firefox-kinda-guy or a Flock-chick, you basically have three new – or improved – options.
- Badge – show your blog or social profile visitors your most popular, recently added or recently used software.
- Forum-like signature – show your fellow forum members what you’re doing beside commenting on endless discussion
- Card – small card, modeled after the famous Xfire ones, that shows your avatar and some software data, like the two most used programs (always your browser + something else)
These three types of widgets fascinate me. Apparently there are people out there who use their software data as a way to express themselves. Most boys and girls let their blog and profile visitors know who they are by showing the music they like (Last.fm) or the books they read (Amazon), yet now software enters the stage of self-expression. In a way, it makes sense. 30,000 geeky early adopters – like me – we’re already watching each others software usage within the safe surroundings of Wakoopa, so why not take it outside as well?
Moreover, just like you see fellas walking around with a shirt of their favorite band, some guys now also wear Firefox jackets or Linux hats. One thing I don’t see happening though, is a poster of your favorite app above your bed.
There’s a fourth widget too, with which developers can show much Wakoopa members use your program. Want to create your own Wakoopa widget? Here’s the API.
Written on 28th December 2007
2 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Once upon a time I decided to check out this thing called the World Wide Web. I bought a modem, signed up with a local Internet Service Provider and borrowed a disk from a friend with software to ‘browse’ the Web. That piece of software was called Netscape.
Since then a lot has happened. On February 1, 2008 AOL will stop supporting Netscape. It is the end of an era and I think everybody who got online before 1999 feels kind of sad (and old?) when they hear about it.
As a small tribute to an old friend I am proudly displaying this button, one last time:
Obviously this is big news so expect a lot of articles about it on- and offline in the following weeks. Here is a small selection:
Official Netscape Blog: End of Support for Netscape web browsers
http://blog.netscape.com/2007/12/28/end-of-support-for-netscape-web-browsers/
BBC News: Web icon set to be discontinued
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7163547.stm
Techcrunch: A Sad Milestone: AOL To Discontinue Netscape Browser Development
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/28/a-sad-milestone-aol-to-discontinue-netscape-browser-development/
Written on 13th December 2007
2 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Wakoopa, the software scrobbling service, launched ‘Alexa-like‘ statistics earlier this week. Co-founder of Wakoopa and Next Web blogger Robert Gaal told me during a drink in the fancy club 11 – overlooking Amsterdam – why these visuals are relevant to software users. “When users decide whether or not to use a program, they can check our statistics to see if the program is an one-hit-wonder, or if it has proved its value to many users on a longer term. The visuals also give smaller programs a chance, since users are able to check if some programs are suddenly getting more popular.”
The launch made it to Techcrunch, where Nick Gonzalez wrote a positive article about the new service. The first time Gonzalez blogged about Wakoopa, comments were deadly. Two days ago however, visitors expressed their appreciation for Wakoopa. At first, Gaal was pretty shocked by the negative comments in April: “The first comment just consisted of one word: ‘useless’. That’s really hard to take after months of working. For a moment there, I lost hope.”
Just for a moment though, because Gaal and his business partner Wouter Broekhof just kept on going. “After all, those few comments are just today’s fad. We’ve emailed those negative guys, asking them what they didn’t like about our service. Their criticism was useful. Moreover, we managed to convince most of them that Wakoopa isn’t a threat to their privacy”.
Today, the software service doesn’t seem ‘useless’ anymore. 17.000 people downloaded the Wakoopa tracking program, generating unique and seriously useful data about software. (more…)
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
