Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has blocked Opera Software ASA (OSL:OPERA) from releasing their own browser software into the App Store.  The Opera browser is already supported by Windows Mobile and many people use it as their default rather than Internet Explorer.  It seems that Microsoft is giving users more choice when it comes to mobile devices.

Since the co-founder and CEO of Opera, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner was interviewed by The New York Times a few days ago, there has been speculation for why Apple blocked them.  The biggest reason is that Opera directly competes with the Safari web browser.  Another reason why it is possible that Opera was blocked is that it has a Javascript interpreter built-in which has a tendency to use up a lot of memory and crash often.

Apple’s Safari browser has a lot of positives to it, but it does not support Flash for the iPhone.  Apple tried to compensate it’s lack of Flash-support by providing a separate YouTube program that automatically full-screens any videos that are watched.  But is that really enough?

I’m A PC and I’ve Been Placed Outside of an Apple Store

Those of you who walk into the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) store in Birmingham, England will notice that there is a massive kiosk in the front covered with I’m A PC ads.  The kiosk recommends people to record their voice saying, “I’m a PC” in a recording device.  This is one of the many marketing tactics that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is taking against as part of their $300 million campaign.

Crispin Porter & Bogusky is the advertising company helping Microsoft plan the “I’m a PC” ads.  You may also have remembered that Microsoft created the advertisement with a Mac though.  AppleInsider revealed the details of the story.

The chances of the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) advertising partnership happening is getting slimmer.  The two search engine companies have not be able to reach any sort of agreement with the Justice Department.  The two companies are rumored to just walk away from the deal altogether.  If companies and the Justice Department are able to come up with a solution, then it will probably take place sometime in the middle of next week.

The partnership was officially announced in June.  The partnership was originally devised as a way to downplay the acquisition offer made by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).

If the deal did take place, then Google would have been able to help Yahoo! generate millions of dollars by providing them with advertising inventory.  But if the deal doesn’t happen, Yahoo! shareholders will be upset and the pressure to have Jerry Yang removed from the CEO spot may increase.  His role as CEO has been highly questioned during the August 1st shareholder meeting.

AOL and Yahoo! are currently rumored to be in talks of a merger.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is one of the biggest cloud companies in the world today.  Google is constantly monitoring the reliability of GMail, Google Apps, and all of their other services that they provide whether it is available for free or for a fee.  Every millisecond that a service goes offline is logged.  

Google reported that GMail has been available for more than 99.9% of the time for all paid customers and free users.  Google had one major outage in August 2008, but that was about it.

“If you average all these data together, including the August outage, across the entire Gmail service, there has been an aggregate 10-15 minutes of downtime per month over the last year of providing the service,” stated Matthew Glotzbach, Product Management Director of Google Enterprise.  ”That 10-15 minutes per month average represents small delays of a couple of seconds here and there.”

Based on these numbers, GMail is 2x more reliable than Novell GroupWise and 4x more reliable than Microsoft Exchange server.  Google is so confident about their reliability that they are extending their 99.9% service level agreement to Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Talk for Premier Edition customers.  This affects about 1 million of Google’s Apps businesses.

Google also depends on the reliability of their Premier Apps services because they are also one of the million of businesses that run on it.

Jim Cramer is co-founder of TheStreet.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSCM).   The site was started around 1996 and is currently valuated around $113.60 million.  While Cramer became very busy with his CNBC show, Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer, he has decided to step up as Chairman of the company he started.  

This will allow Thomas J. Clarke, the current CEO of TheStreet.com to “focus on navigating the company through this difficult economic environment.”  Prior to this announcement, Clarke was both CEO and Chairman.  At the end of this quarter, TheStreet reported $16.7 million in revenue.  This is up from last year’s $16.1 million in the same quarter.

“Our quarterly results reflect the revenue impact of the weakened online advertising market,” stated Clarke. “While we remain committed to investing in our growth initiatives, we are reviewing our cost structure, as is prudent, in this difficult environment. Our strong balance sheet, with $80 million in cash and no bank debt, ensures we are particularly well positioned to navigate these headwinds.”  

[image: FlyGuy92586]

The Google Chrome team has released a new version of their browser software.  The new version comes with security updates, top issues repaired, and a change on how things work.  

Security
- Many pop-ups will spoof a user to close a window, but it turns out that it is actually part of the advertisement.  A new feature has been created to prevent people from being fooled.

Top Issues That Have Been Repaired
- Touchpad scrolling on laptops
- Plugins like Flash, Silverlight, Quicktime, and Windows Media are now working.
- “Chrome has crashed” message has been changed.
- No longer store information from logging into secure sites (https)
- Improved reliability for those on web proxies

UI Changes
- New tab/window/incognito window has been moved to a new menu called “Customize and control Google Chrome” instead of “Control the current page.”
- Spell checker works on text input fields and words can be “added to the dictionary.”
- Temporary downloaded files are called .download files.  After the file saving is complete, the file extension is converted to the appropriate type. 

To download the newest version of Chrome, click here.  Download the newest version, then click on About Google Chrome and tell the browser to update.

 
Mark Cuban, the number 161 richest American, has made an investment in a blog that tracks how the $700 billion bailout package is being spent.  As many of you know, Neel Kashkari, Senior Advisor to Henry M. Paulson is directing the bailout package.  And Chris Carey, the founder of BailoutSleuth wants to make sure that the money is going in the right places.

Chris Carey, is a former St. Louis Dispatch reporter.  Carey is good at reading through SEC documents and court filings.  He has already discovered bailout contracts with some of the banks.  Below are 27 banks of the banks that are receiving federal investments according to Carey:

1. Citigroup Inc. (New York) — $25 billion
2. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (New York) – $25 billion
3. Wells Fargo & Co. (San Francisco) — $25 billion
4. Bank of America Corp. (Charlotte, N.C.) — $15 billion
5. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (New York) — $10 billion
6. Merrill Lynch Inc. (New York) — $10 billion
7. Morgan Stanley (New York) — $10 billion
8. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (Pittsburgh) — $7.7 billion
9. Capital One Financial Corp. (McLean, Va.) — $3.55 billion
10. Regions Financial Corp. (Birmingham, Ala.) — $3.5 billion
11. SunTrust Banks Inc. (Atlanta) — $3.5 billion
12. Fifth Third Bancorp (Cincinnati) — $3.4 billion
13. BB&T Corp. (Winston-Salem, NC) — $3.1 billion
14. Bank of New York Mellon (New York) — $3 billion
15. Keycorp (Cleveland) — $2.5 billion
16. Comerica Inc. (Dallas) — $2.25 billion
17. State Street Corp. (Boston) — $2 billion
18. Northern Trust Corp. (Chicago) — $1.5 billion
19. Huntington Bancshares Inc. (Columbus, Ohio) — $1.4 billion
20. First Horizon National Corp. (Memphis, Tenn.)  – $866 million
21. City National Corp. (Beverly Hills, Calif.) — $395 million
22. Valley National Bancorp (Wayne, N.J.) — $330 million
23. UCBH Holdings Inc. (San Francisco) — $298 million
24. Washington Federal Savings (Seattle) — $200 million
25. First Niagara Financial Group Inc. (Buffalo, N.Y.)  – $186 million
26. HF Financial Corp. (Sioux Falls, S.D.) — $25 million
27. Saigon National Bank (Westminster, Calif.) — $1.2 million

[via PEHub]

AT&T recently announced that iPhone owners will get unlimited free access to over 17,000 of the company’s WiFi hotspots. AT&T made similar announcements earlier this year but never kept its word. This time around, it looks like the offer may just stick. iPhone owners were notified of the perk by text message.

Certain BlackBerry devices will also get free access to the WiFi hotspots.

An unlimited data plan is required to use the free WiFi.