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That changes today: you can now download the entire Rock and Roll Jesus album–and Kid Rock’s entire catalog if you’re so inclined–through the Rhapsody MP3 store. The albums are also available to Rhapsody subscribers. You still can’t buy the single on its own, as Kid Rock considers himself an album artist and wants you to hear the full package. And still no iTunes, as Apple frowns on album-only sales. It’ll be interesting to see if digital availability has any impact on sales, or whether fans keep preferring the CD.

Bawitdaba da bang a dang diggy diggy.

His latest album, Rock and Roll Jesus has not only sold more than 2 million albums, but has continued to sell lots of copies long past its release date–this week, nearly a year after release, it’s still at No. 7. That’s almost unprecedented in this day and age, when top-selling pop artists (think Mariah Carey) sell hundreds of thousands of albums in their first week then plummet off the charts. Why the staying power? Some argue it’s because the hit single from the album, All Summer Long (which is basically a reworking of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”) hasn’t been available as a digital download on iTunes or anywhere else. If you want to own the song, the only way to get it has been to buy the full CD.

Truck stop rocker Kid Rock has been one of the poster boys for the “ignore downloads” crowd.

TypePad AntiSpam plugs into TypePad as well as Wordpress.

TypePad AntiSpam is the same antispam technology that’s currently built into TypePad, but the company is making it available to all who want it, with no charge and no usage restrictions. The service is in semi-beta: “The code is not beta but the (open source framework around it) is,” Six Apart CEO Chris Alden also said.

(Credit:
Six Apart)

Six Apart is launching a free, semi-open-source filter for blog comment spam.

There will be TypePad AntiSpam plug-ins available for Six Apart’s blog platforms, TypePad and Movable Type, as well as for Wordpress blogs.

However, Alden said, if someone has their own antispam engine, they could plug it into the open-source framework.

Web 2.0 blog TechCrunch has been testing this antispam service, Alden said.

The TypePad AntiSpam framework is open source. Anyone can muck around in the code that integrates the engine, repackage it, and so on. The heurestics and rules in the engine itself, however, run on Six Apart’s servers and are not open. Opening them would give spammers everything they need to break through the system, Alden told me. The standard antispam engine for Wordpress, Akismet, is also closed.

Update 11:10 a.m. PDT: Thanks to News.com readers for pointing out the origins of two of the three icons I pointed out in this blog. Turns out this little game is only fun for those of us who don’t use
Leopard and aren’t developers. I will now return to speculating about the upcoming features based on other, more telling factors, such as local temperature and humidity readings.

In the runup to any major Apple event, there’s no end to the amount of guesswork about what Steve Jobs will pull out of his pocket (or manila envelope, as the case may be).

Click the image above to get a closer look.

With the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference around the corner, our intrepid photographer, James Martin, took a stroll past Moscone West and managed to snap these photos of banners hanging inside before the convention hall heavies came and shooed him away.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET News.com)

Click the image above to get a closer look.

Photo No. 1
This has two intriguing icons: the green X and the purple sphere. The green X is obviously the iPhone’s new flux capacitor. That, or maybe it’s just there to represent new games taking advantage of the device’s existing accelerometer.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET News.com)

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET News.com)

Photo No. 3
The mosaic eye, made up of dozens of miniature photos, caught our eye in this photo. Could it indicate a new Flickr-style app?

Click the image above to get a closer look.

Photo No. 2
In this photo, the small purple icon seems to be a pen and ink well–an indication of handwriting recognition perhaps?

What do you think? Do the icons on these signs give us an idea of what’s to come?

Some of these icons are familiar, and some are new. Of the new ones, what new features do you suppose they might represent? Check the pictures out below and let us know what you think in the comments area below. We’ve uploaded them at the best resolution we can. Just click through each one to see a larger version and scan the icons for clues about what’s around the corner.

They depict lots of icons, which would fit with the expectation that at least one announcement will be the launch of the App Store, an online store through which people can buy and download approved third-party application for the
iPhone.

Overall this move is beneficial for the whole virtualization market, but it’s hard to see how VMware can maintain its dominant position if cloud providers see them as a threat instead of a partner or technology supplier.

But why has VMware taken so long to embrace the cloud? And what will happen to all of the providers who are VMware customers who now find themselves competing directly with the source?

Things should start to get interesting for Xen and XVM. I only have cursory knowledge of Red Hat’s Qumranet acquisition, but there is a clear opportunity for basically everyone who is not VMware to go after the providers that are currently locked in.

Oh, and don’t forget Microsoft, which has a massive network of value-added resellers and hosting providers locked in to Windows and who will undoubtedly adopt Hyper-V.

VMware’s announcement Monday of its new VCloud initiative is an early attempt to offer a more “enterprise-class” cloud offering. Considering that most cloud offerings are based on virtual machine images, it’s a smart (and obvious) move by VMware to stake its claim.

To date, the majority of cloud offerings have lacked certain enterprise fundamentals–things like security models, licensing agreements, and so on that are requirements, not accessories. By aligning with hosting providers like Rackspace, VMware starts to offer show some of the enterprise type of attributes we’ll eventually see from companies like IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

You try to do the right thing by setting your PC to update Windows automatically, only to be stopped in your tracks by some error message or–more likely–a hung browser. Usually there’s a simple explanation for the update hiccup. But not always. The steps below for resuscitating a stalled Windows update begin with the simplest solution and end with the trickiest.

Temporarily disable your security software. Overzealous firewalls and antivirus programs may inadvertently block Windows Update from downloading and installing necessary OS patches. Right-click the program’s icon in your system tray and choose Exit or Disable (you may have to open the program’s management console and close it from there).

Unfortunately, the only way to disable some security programs, such as Symantec’s Norton 360, is to open Task Manager and disable them there. To do so, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete, click the Processes tab, find and select the process for the program (it likely uses a variation of the product’s name), and click End Process. The process will restart automatically the next time Windows loads, or restart it manually by clicking its Start menu shortcut to reopen it.

Run the Windows Update Fix batch file. The CastleCopsWiki offers a downloadable batch file that automatically addresses many of the causes for a stalled update. Use it by unzipping the download file and double-clicking the file named WUFix.bat. This is far from a guaranteed fix for update woes, but if everything else has failed to resolve the problem, it’s worth a try.

Make sure you’re logged in an administrator account. To find out if your current account has administrator privileges, click Start > Control Panel > User Accounts (in Vista’s standard Control Panel view, click User Accounts and Family Safety, and then choose User Accounts). If the account you’re currently using isn’t labeled “Computer administrator” in XP, or “Administrator” in Vista, log into an administrator account and try the automatic update again.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

Check Microsoft’s update-troubleshooting site. The first time I visited the Windows Update Troubleshooter, I expected to find a great tool that automatically scanned my PC and fixed whatever was blocking Windows from updating. Instead I opened a page with a long list of links to articles intended to help you figure out the problem on your own. You can find much the same information by copying the error code that appears when Windows Update fails and pasting it into your favorite Web search engine to discover information about it, and possible a solution.

If Windows won't update, check the User Accounts Control Panel applet to make sure you're logged on as an administrator.

Tomorrow: the best alternatives to Adobe Acrobat.

However, some reports say Nvidia has reached an agreement with Intel to license Intel’s Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) technology, paving the way for Nvidia to design chipsets for Nehalem.

This announcement may help Nvidia to work around a standoff with Intel over whether Nvidia can make chipsets that work with Intel’s next-generation Nehalem platform, due later this year. And also demonstrates that despite Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang’ s rhetoric, Nvidia must cooperate with Intel in order to thrive.

Nvidia SLI technology supports multiple graphics boards.

Nvidia included statements from system suppliers in the Monday release. “It’s great to see that Nvidia opted to enable SLI on the future Intel Bloomfield platform,” said Rahul Sood, CTO Voodoo Business Unit, HP. “Make love not war I say…and Nvidia’s (enabling) of Intel chipsets to support SLI will make our jobs much easier.”

Motherboards and PC systems that will use the Nvidia nForce 200 SLI chip, Nvidia GeForce GPUs, and Nvidia SLI technology will be available from companies such as Acer, ASUS, Dell, Falcon Northwest, Legend, and Velocity Micro.

Monday’s announcement has no relation to separate licensing negotiations, according to sources familiar with the discussions. In other words, Nvidia is not announcing a chipset for Nehalem–which would require a license. It is simply a statement that Nvidia will support Nehalem with its nForce 200 Scalable Link Interconnect (SLI) chip.

(Credit:
Nvidia)

Upcoming SLI motherboards will use Nvidia nForce 200 SLI silicon, Intel Bloomfield processors, and Intel Tylersburg (X58) chipsets, Nvidia said in a statement.

Nvidia claims that nForce 200 SLI silicon with Intel’s new Bloomfield processor and Tylersburg chipset core logic chipset will deliver up to a 2.8X performance boost over traditional single graphics card platforms.

“The nForce 200 SLI processor features patented SLI technology for graphics bandwidth management and multi-GPU peer-to-peer communications, both required to optimize graphics performance,” Nvidia said. GPU stands for graphics processing unit.

Nvidia said Monday that its multichip technology will be architected to work on Intel’s upcoming Nehalem chip platform.

Future systems “can be powered by one, two, or even three Nvidia GeForce GPUs, including the new…GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 GPUs,” according to Nvidia.

The nForce 200 chip will work with Intel’s “Bloomfield” line of Nehalem processors and the accompanying Intel chipset. SLI allows Nvidia to use multiple graphics boards in one system.

Update at July 15, 3:00 a.m. PDT with additional information and corrections concerning the Intel-Nvidia dispute.

Kagermann said that while some of the main selling points for Salesforce and other Web-based services make sense–namely, better usability and productivity–corporate buyers are a notoriously conservative bunch.

Web-based business software sold by companies such as Benioff’s Salesforce.com will likely augment, not replace, large, complex enterprise systems, SAP Chief Executive Henning Kagermann told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

As Rishi Chandra, product manager for Google Enterprise, said earlier this month, technology innovation is being spurred by the consumer market, which will, in turn, drive demand for better business systems.

Clearly, Henning’s argument is biased toward his company’s product line. But he may have a point: it’s more difficult to manage Web-based systems implemented piecemeal at the departmental level. Regulatory compliance is becoming a corporate nightmare, and companies need all of the help they can get.

While Marc Benioff may rail against the status quo in the enterprise software business, not all software buyers will join in the chorus, according to one of Benioff’s chief competitors.

Some things never change. For decades, CIOs have been a conservative lot. And for decades, end users have demanded more.

A slicker user interface and easier access to corporate applications answer only some of the needs of big business. Security, a uniform data model and corporate-wide compliance with regulatory rules are more pressing for C-level executives, he argues.

Still, much of the real innovation is taking place at companies like Salesforce and Google, as well as at many smaller firms hard at work defining the next wave of cloud-based business software. (Microsoft is making strides here, too).

Kagermann: Big software is here to stay.

SAP, for its part, is still struggling with its on-demand strategy.

(Credit:
SAP)

Like many other applications, NetNewsWire is the iPhone version of an already-brawny Web service operated by NewsGator, and one whose desktop versions CNET Download.com editors have already acclaimed for its usability on Macs and on PCs, where it’s known as FeedDemon.

NetNewsWire for iPhone is a feeds repository, but a good one. You won’t be able to add feeds at this early stage, but the application will syncs with any of your existing NewsGator accounts for NetNewsWire for Macintosh, FeedDemon, Inbox, and NewsGator Online. The application lets new users to sign up from the iPhone. You’ll also be able to save posts in a clippings folder for later perusal, and read the full article on
Safari.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Of the several news readers offered in Apple’s iTunes App Store to date, NetNewsWire stands out as the most appealing. Unlike Mobile News from the Associated Press, NetNewsWire pulls in stories from multiple sources, and unlike Google Reader, it does so nearly instantly in a true native application (Google Readers whisks you to an
iPhone-optimized Web application after you select it from a list of more options on Google Mobile.)

The bottom line is that FDE alone isn’t cutting it anymore; large organizations want and are willing to pay for more. This moves the FDE market in two diverse directions. On the one hand, big endpoint security vendors like McAfee, Symantec, and Trend Micro can simply make FDE a feature in their suites for cost-conscious customers and charge a few extra bucks for the favor. This makes FDE easy for the masses. On the other hand, FDE will be offered as part of much bigger and focused data security offerings. BitArmor and PGP come to mind here.

As companies buy encryption software to cover this requirement, however, another pattern is emerging. Don’t let that $150 per user licensing fool you–FDE has become a commodity. The federal government negotiated a deal to pay around $15 per seat for FDE, and I’ve seen big deals as low as $5 per seat. To their credit, the FDE software vendors anticipated this inevitable trend and are now wrapping additional functionality around their FDE contracts to sweeten the deals and provide customers with more security. McAfee/SafeBoot bundles in Data Leakage Prevention (DLP); PointSec adds port blocking, etc.

Given the slew of privacy regulations and publicly disclosed breaches, laptop encryption has become a must-have.

Ultimately, FDE fades into the infrastructure, embedded in Intel chips, Microsoft operating systems, and Seagate Technology hard drives. In the meantime, the remaining FDE crowd is scrambling to remain relevant. FDE as a feature in a greater data security suite is a good plan for the long term. FDE as a business opportunity is all but gone.

A few years ago, encryption was a topic discussed at the NSA or MIT, not in the corporate boardroom. Times have changed!

A Google representative did not immediately return my request for comment, so this one is still hanging around in the gossip-sphere. But Valleywag reported that the changes are slated to be announced Monday, which would mean that either a confirmation or debunking should be available within hours.

Google has become renowned for its employee perks: massages, game rooms, gyms, laundry facilities, and free food three times a day. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin went out on a limb in creating the free-food strategy, which they said was a worthwhile investment to make employees healthier, happier, and more efficient. The food’s even good enough for Google’s original head chef to have penned a cookbook.

Critics of the perks have suggested, in addition to questioning the economic efficiency, that offering so much free food is really just a way to make Googlers spend more time at the office. Then there’s the internal joke about the “Google 15″ (or “Google 20″ depending on who you ask), the rumored weight gain that happens after getting hired at Google and being surrounded by so much gratis grub.

A chef prepares Google food, back in 2004.

Blame the mounting economic pressures, or too many chubby engineers: Google has decided to stop offering free dinner, afternoon snacks, and its “tea trolley” to employees, according to an unconfirmed rumor floated on Valleywag.

Cutting perks always results in bad PR, something that Google learned the hard way when it shot the cost of day care for employees’ kids into the stratosphere, for example. But cutting back on free food, one of Google’s most visible and unique perks, may be over the top for some workers.

Coincidentally, the gossip comes soon after the heavy blogging of a two-month-old Flickr photo that revealed Google’s New York cafeteria serving bacon cheeseburgers on Krispy Kreme donuts as a novelty food. Hey, Googlers, maybe the rumored change is for your own good.

(Credit:
Google)

Still, this has not been confirmed, which means that it could easily turn out to be false, or perhaps overhyped (restricted to Google satellite offices, for example). But given the marketwide economic belt-tightening, it’s not too hard to believe the rumor.