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Microsoft has launched a formal complaint to the European Commission against search engine giant Google, accusing them of using a variety of illegal approaches in order to dominate the European search market.

Microsoft’s general counsel, Brad Smith, is renowned for his duties in the protection of the software guru against monopoly complaints and competition – and as his words and actions are well respected in the Internet arena, his accusations go to show that he must know what he’s doing.

His previous defence of the firm proved unsuccessful, when Google was accused of using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to protect its monopoly resulted with them being fined €1.35 billion by the Commission.

Smith explained Microsoft’s reasons for asking its former rival for assistance in the fight against Google.  He said that Google’s purchase of YouTube had ended in: “technical measures to restrict competing search engines from properly accessing it for their search results”.

He then accused Google of disallowing Windows mobile phones from functioning properly with YouTube, as well as accusing them of blocking access to “orphan works” – books with anonymous copyright holders.

The most important element for any web hosting service should be the server – committed to the business, this offers a variety of different benefits.  The primary advantage behind a dedicated server allows you to use as much bandwidth as you want daily without having to worry about the server crashing.  When choosing a dedicated server, look for web hosting companies who will guarantee 100% up-time, as this will provide peace of mind for both yourself and the company.

The two main features you should be looking for in web hosting include:

-          Crashes. Always ensure that the web hosting company you choose as the most up-to-date hardware.  Recently Colorado experienced an issue with computers crashing at the State Department of Revenue, but according to The Daily Sentinel, not only did it happen once, it happened a second time in February and March of 2011.  Whatever your website may deal with, it’s highly likely that the fundamental use behind most websites is to generate revenue.  For example, have you ever attempted to purchase an item off a website only for the page to have trouble loading?  Then did you try again a few hours later, or give up?  If your company regularly makes sales then it is imperative to find a company with stable up-time, as any potential downtime could cost you your money – and your customers.

-          Control. Another reason people opt for dedicated server web hosting is to have full control over their servers.  When sharing servers with others, you’ll have to agree on issues such as hardware used as well as the operating system.  Servers generally have their own default settings that cannot be changed, restricting your control – so always make sure you choose web hosting that gives you control to adjust your settings whenever you need to. 

Always choose a web hosting company that will provide you with support should anything go wrong.  For unless you have a good knowledge with computers, you need to ensure professionals are on hand to assist with your web hosting and running of your servers.

It’s not easy communicating your ideas into words, especially when the images in your head don’t transfer well onto paper.  But UK flooring distributor, Floorsonline, have come up with a unique approach to ensure companies and customers can see the bigger picture – through the use of Flickr.

Image and video hosting website Flickr, has had their services enlisted by Floorsonline to showcase their customer’s recent home improvements to uninspired home designers.  Although the flooring company are experienced in a number of different social media platforms, this new venture allows customers to show off their latest designs including laminate flooring and any other flooring products.

By utilising the Flickr page, visitors can also connect through to the Floorsonline Facebook page, where fans can swap tips and also recommend other designs through their Twitter page, allowing business and customers to work together in inspiring new ideas.

With more and more users seeking online help to compare prices and designs, this is another step in the right direction for social networking and media sharing sites to increase interaction with their users.

The idea of visual concept is certain to get the ball rolling with other home improvement websites, or in any case where ‘seeing is believing’.

Most people may regard most MPs as general twits, but last week the House of Lords had every reason to live up to that description – thanks to the publication of new rules allowing MPs to surf and tweet during debates.

So as long as it’s done in good taste and doesn’t take up too much space, the Third Report of the Procedure Committee approved the use of mobile phones and other handheld devices “to keep up to date with emails…provided that it causes no disturbance.”

Nonetheless, the Speaker has in the past clarified that it was unacceptable during the course of a speech for a Member to be prompted by information on the screen, or for any equipment to be used by a Member as a prompt in the middle of proceedings.

In January this year, this guideline was reinforced by Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, who was reported to rule against the use of Twitter following Labour MP Kevin Brennan’s complaint against Lib Dem Julian Huppert for allegedly tweeting disparaging comments involving Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham, instead of openly making his comments in the Chamber.

Unfortunately there seems to be a difference in views in allowing MPs to tweet, with Conservative MP James Gray voting against the report due to worries of the proposed rules leading to a “worrying change in the atmosphere” in Parliament. Even though committee chair Greg Knight commended the report to the House, he felt that MPs “tweeting about their holidays…whilst a minister was announcing deaths in Afghanistan” could result in embarrassment. However, he believed that the House of Commons needs to keep up with the times, and with this type of technology now available, should be utilised.

Start your own debate and tell us what you think about MPs using Twitter.

A teenager from Queensland, Australia, could face serious charges after hacking into a United States web hosting provider led to the company’s temporary closure over the weekend.  The 16-year-old hacker identified simply as “Elliot”, worked in conjunction with an accomplice based in New York known as “John”.  Operating from opposite parts of the world, the two men accessed a security loophole in the infrastructure of cloud provider PHP Fog that allowed them to steal and publish the company’s source code and passwords on social media platform, Twitter.

Shortly after the infiltration, the Australian hacker apologised to the company’s CEO Lucas Carlson, admitting that he should have informed the company of their activities – but unfortunately, his apology fell on deaf ears.

“We are talking to our legal counsel and the FBI and may press charges,” said Carlson.  “This kind of behaviour will not be accepted.  Ever.  There are proper disclosure protocols for handling this kind of situation and none of them were respected.”

PHP Fog offers servers for each customer application stack which include cache, database layers and load balancing, but the hackers had implicated the site by breaking into a shared fail-over environment – resulting in customer applications being deployed concurrently within a shared hosting environment.

Elliot was kicked off the company’s servers 15 minutes after the attack was identified, but the hacker then used stolen data stored on the compromised server to redirect people to a mock website called “PHPFogsucks,” where boasts of his exploits were posted on the company’s blog and Twitter accounts.

Carlson reported that a forensic view deemed the hack as vandalism, and did not compromise customer details.

“Our beta tasters have encouraged us to bounce back while denouncing the childish and criminal acts against us.  We thank you all so much and will not let you down again,” he said.

Since its birth on September 26 2006, social networking site Facebook has revolutionised the way we interact.  Introducing a new language of “tagging” and “defriending”, the social media site has altered the way society values relationships; encouraging people to spend more time conversing with their friends online, and doing background checks on potential partners through browsing their profiles.

So with more and more people spending their time on the virtual highway, this has inevitably led Facebook to be the most searched for brand of 2010 on the Internet – beating rivals such as eBay, Amazon and YouTube.

A study conducted by Experian Hitwise found that 3.5 per cent of all searches were for Facebook, with the figure increasing to 6 per cent if abbreviated to “fb” or spelt incorrectly like “Facbook”.  YouTube were reported to be behind Facebook in the search wars, however Google’s video sharing site grew in traffic by over 22 per cent during the course of 2010.

Next after YouTube was eBay, Amazon, Argos, BBC, Autotrader, Sky, Next, followed by Tesco.  Whilst many of those brands are retailers, the top 2 are social sites – which just goes to show how dominant social networking is within the Internet.

But how many of those sites do you actually use and why?  Let us know your thoughts.

Micro-blogging platform Tumblr experienced a ‘technical glitch’ over the weekend, after suffering from a minor security breach.  Last weekend Tumblr admitted that human error was responsible to the exposure of “sensitive server configuration information”, but remained tight-lipped as to the rumoured disclosure of users’ login information.

Although the blog hosting site was able to rectify the situation a few hours after experiencing the malfunction, it is now reviewing its policies to ensure similar mistakes are avoided.

“We’re triple checking everything and bringing in outside auditors to confirm, but we have no reason to believe that anything was compromised,” explained the status update on an official Tumblr page.

“We’re certain that none of your personal information (passwords, etc) was exposed, and your blog is backed up and safe as always…The fact that this occurred at all is still unacceptable, and we’ll be seriously evaluating and adjusting our processes to ensure an error like this can never happen again.”

With over 15 million users, the blogging platform is design for users to post their various media into a short informal blog.

Make sure your security remains uncompromised, with Layer 7’s efficient web hosting solutions.

Hollywood actor Charlie Sheen hasn’t exactly been known for the most memorable of roles – other than starring in ‘Hot Shots’ and ‘Two and a Half Men’, his personal life seems to gain more coverage than his acting achievements.  But all that changed, when an interview he gave shortly after being dismissed from the CBS show ‘Two and a Half Men’ got turned into an auto-tuned remix.

When asked if he was bi-polar, he responded with the rather bizarre ‘bi-winning’; and since then has become a cult phenomenon on YouTube, with different parodies of the song available in dub or electronic.  The Spotify viral has had over 14 million views, and with classic lines such as “Come on bro, I got tiger blood” and “I was banging 7-gram rocks, that’s how I roll”, he has become an alternative hero to the younger generation who, in their minds, see him as “epic”.

But when you think about what the song is actually about, it really comes down to making light of someone who is quite clearly dealing with some psychological issues – though if he can make a more memorable appearance  for over 2 minutes than he has done through the years of film-making, in my eyes, that makes him a bi-‘winner’.

2010 saw a new buzzword floating around the Internet, known simply as ‘cloud computing’ – but it’s only in 2011 that companies have grasped a better understanding regarding the cloud concept.

Basically, cloud computing is “just another word for something that’s been going on for a long time – the Internet,” jokes Rowan Trollope, the person responsible for cloud services at web security organisation Symantec.  However, this is actually a revolutionary change in the way we approach computer technology.

Delivering computing power over the Internet, cloud computing turns software into a service where customers don’t pay for a licence but instead pay for how much they use; allowing storage space and computing a power a commodity, purchased when required and scaled up when necessary.

This type of service is more applicable to the smaller companies, as information technology can be costly – requiring capital expenditure for issues such as software licences, servers, and a workforce to maintain it.

With the globalisation of businesses, cloud computing is actually a handy resolution for corporate mobility, and what with many people working on the move or remotely using technology such as smartphones and tablet computers; using cloud services saves companies from building the expensive infrastructure needed to support mobile services.

Good news for people who like a ‘cloudy’ future ahead.

The word ‘viral’ usually conjures up an image (or video) of an unusual amusement – with famous virals including Pinky the rescue cat, and the Numa Numa kid.  But with 16 million views and the most tweeted trend on Twitter, a 13-year-old American teenager has achieved worldwide fame thanks to her song going viral, after being described as possibly the worst song to ever have been recorded.

Called ‘Friday’, literally millions of people have criticised the lyrics as awful – including lines such as “yesterday was Thursday Thursday, today it is Friday Friday,” “gotta get down to the bus stop, gotta get my bus, I see my friends” and “kickin’ in the front seat, sittin’ in the back seat, gotta make my mind up, which seat can I take?”.

But since her discovery on YouTube, the singer is now globally recognised as a number one star – despite coming under fire for her heavily auto tuned singing and debatable lyrics.

Tweeting on March 15, she said, “My song Friday is now available on iTunes !!! Thank you all for your support. xoxo <3 ”.

Sorry for not tweeting about this sooner, but I was helping Rebecca decide which seat she should take.