Archive for October, 2011

Google Gains After Advertising Demand Helps Sales Top Estimates

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Google Inc. (GOOG), the world’s biggest Internet-search company, rose as much as 7.1 percent in extended trading yesterday after demand for online advertising vaulted third-quarter sales past analysts’ estimates.

Excluding revenue passed on to partner sites, sales rose to $7.51 billion, Mountain View, California-based Google said yesterday. That exceeded the $7.23 billion average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Chief Executive Officer Larry Page, who succeeded Eric Schmidt in April, is benefiting from Google’s leadership in search advertising, even as the company pushes into new markets such as mobile, display and social networking. Google, which makes most of its money from search ads, should take 76 percent of the U.S. market this year, up from 74 percent in 2010 and 70 percent in 2009, according to research firm EMarketer Inc.

“The core business is the money pump,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners LP who rates the stock a buy.

Google climbed as much as $39.44 to $598.43 in extended trading. Yesterday, the shares rose 1.9 percent on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock has dropped 5.9 percent this year.

Third-quarter net income climbed 26 percent to $2.73 billion, or $8.33 a share, from $2.17 billion, or $6.72, a year earlier. Profit, excluding some items, was $9.72 a share, beating the $8.76 average estimate.

Shift Online

The number of clicks on ads rose about 28 percent in the third quarter from the year-ago period, while the average cost per click increased approximately 5 percent, the company said.

“It’s the continual secular shift of people spending more online,” said Herman Leung, an analyst at Susquehanna International Group in San Francisco. “They’re benefiting from higher volume and higher click-through. Google’s implementing a lot of advertising improvements.”

Page is trying to fend off competition from Facebook Inc., the biggest social network, with a project called Google+. The service now has more than 40 million users, up from more than 10 million in July.

The company aims to offset increased spending by becoming more efficient, shuttering more than 20 businesses, Page said.

“Ever since taking over as CEO, I have focused much of my energy on increasing Google’s velocity and execution, and we’re beginning to see results,” he said during a call with analysts.

Page held steady on the pace of hiring in the period. Google added 2,585 employees, to finish the quarter at 31,353, a 9 percent increase from the previous quarter. Staffing increased 9.3 percent in the second quarter.

Market Share

Even with more competition from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Google picked up market share in the U.S., according to Sunnyvale, California-based Efficient Frontier Inc., which helps companies promote products online. Google had 82 percent of spending on search advertising in the third quarter, up from 81 percent in the two previous quarters.

Microsoft, which provides search and ad services for Yahoo! Inc.’s U.S. websites under a 10-year agreement, had 18 percent of spending, down from 19 percent in the previous two quarters, according to Efficient Frontier.

Google also has made gains in the number of Internet searches it handles. The company increased its U.S. market share to 65.3 percent in September from 64.8 percent in August, according to ComScore Inc. Yahoo remained No. 2, even as its share fell to 15.5 percent from 16.3 percent. Microsoft was unchanged at 14.7 percent.

Mobile Sales

Google’s Android software, meanwhile, has emerged as the biggest smartphone operating system, bolstered by HTC Corp. (2498), Samsung Electronics Co. and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. adopting the software. Revenue from mobile advertising is on pace to reach $2.5 billion on an annual basis, Page said.

With the growth, Google and device makers have faced legal challenges from companies such as Oracle Corp. (ORCL) To bolster its patent lineup, Google said in August it planned to purchase Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, its largest acquisition ever. Motorola Mobility brings more than 17,000 patents.

More than 190 million Android devices have been activated around the globe, Page said. Android continues to grow and expand, even as it comes under legal scrutiny, he said.

“We’re very excited about Android and we see our partners and the whole ecosystem continuing to grow hugely,” Page said. “And while there’s been lots of people trying to attack that and so on, we see absolutely no signs that that’s effective.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco at bwomack1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net

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R.I.P. Steve Jobs: a farewell tribute to a great American innovator

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder and former CEO, passed away on October 5 at the young age of 56 following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

A true visionary, Jobs will be remembered as one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time. He co-founded Apple in 1976, introduced the first Macintosh computer in 1984, and after being fired in 1985 because of a feud with Apple executives, he went on to found companies like NeXT and Pixar Animation Studios.

Jobs eventually returned as the permanent CEO of Apple in 2000 and helped introduce some of the most popular consumer products of the 21st century, including the iMac, iPod, iTunes, MacBook, iPhone, and iPad.

Less than a decade ago, Apple fans were considered members of a cult. Today, Apple is the second most valuable company in the world only behind Exxon. The iPod is the most popular portable media player in the world, the iPhone is the most popular smartphone in the world, and the iPad is the most popular computer tablet in the world.

He has succeeded in creating consumer-friendly electronics that even the most technologically-inept users can operate. Even the poorest of Americans are fortunate enough to afford Apple products due to the innovation of Steve Jobs. The destitute poor in third-world countries are even beginning to see decade-old iPods and Macs and I’m sure there will be iPads popping up in these same third-world countries in the next ten years as well.

 

In 2008, George W. Bush signed into law a bill called the Trouble Asset Relief Protection that bailed out corporations like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Barack Obama passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that cost taxpayers $787 billion. One of the biggest controversies in Washington today is the U.S. government’s decision in 2009 to provide a $535 million guaranteed loan to a company named Solyndra Corporation. Solyndra was touted by President Obama and promoted by Vice President Biden, and yet the company filed for bankruptcy this past September without paying back any of the $535 million of taxpayer money that the government loaned them. The President, senators, and congressmen are still thinking about spending more taxpayer money to bail out failing companies.

Steve Jobs and Apple present a stark contrast to today’s political and business climate. Upon returning to Apple in 1997, the company was worth a mere $2 billion. After just over a decade of Jobs’ management,

Apple is now worth a total of $350 billion. It’s odd that politicians seem more intent on convincing taxpaying citizens to support the government bailing out their favorite corporations rather than providing a business environment conducive to visionary entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs’ net worth at his time of death is estimated to be about $8 billion. Estate taxes will likely see $2 billion going to the federal government, the same federal government that treats money like it grows on trees. The federal government spends about $2 billion per hour. It’s sad to see a life of hard work be squandered in just a few hours.

Rest in peace Steve Jobs, the last of the great American innovators. He employed tens of thousands of people, created billions in profits for the second-biggest corporation in the world, introduced products into the marketplace at a low price used today for hundreds of millions of people, and he did it largely without any government help. He’ll go down in the history books with the likes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. America can only hope for more people as great as Steve Jobs, but the future doesn’t look so bright.

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Fix to outlook freezing while reading paypal emails

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

A recent change in the PayPal notification messages can cause Outlook to hang for a couple of minutes. The issue is caused by an invalid picture reference in the message and the way Outlook deals with time-outs.

 

Background information

At the bottom of the message, there is a hidden tracking image. Instead of this image pointing to a web server, it is pointing to a non-existing network share. As it is pointing to a network share and not to a web server, Outlook’s “Internet picture blocking” functionality doesn’t kick in and tries to retrieve the content.

Obviously this fails, but Outlook is quite persistent in still trying to reach this network share and it takes up to a minute for it to time-out and stop trying. As this is being done in a foreground thread, it means you cannot use Outlook during this time and will display a “Not Responding” message in the title bar when you try it anyway.

Fixing the broken messages

PayPal is aware of this issue and the template should be corrected soon (if it hasn’t been already). As long as it hasn’t been fixed, you can disable the Reading Pane to prevent accidental selection of the message and cause another time-out of a minute.

As the issue is within the message itself, the issue won’t go away for PayPal messages which you have already received. Throwing away the broken messages would be one solution but if you need to keep the message, you can do the following;

  1. Disconnect yourself from the network by either unplugging your network cable, disconnecting yourself from the wireless network or by disabling your network adapter.
  2. Open the message in its own window via a double click; this should go quickly now.
  3. Place the message in Edit Mode;
    • Outlook 2003
      Edit-> Edit Message
    • Outlook 2007
      tab Message-> group Action-> Other Actions-> Edit message
    • Outlook 2010
      tab Message-> group Move-> Actions-> Edit Message
  4. If you get a prompt that Outlook will need to download external content, accept it. As you are disconnected, it won’t actually attempt to download anything.
  5. At the bottom of the message, you’ll see an e-mail reference number from PayPal. Note the space behind the last number.
    Place your cursor after this space and press Backspace twice.
    Or place your cursor directly after the last number of the reference number and press Delete twice.

    • The first time you press it, you’ll select the image which will show as a dot (see screenshot below).
    • The second time you press it will actually remove the image.
  6. Save and close the image.
  7. Reconnect to the network.

Remove the space behind the reference number to select the image, which
will show as a dot. Pressing Backspace again will remove the broken image.

Fixing a lot of broken messages at once

If you have a lot of broken PayPal message which you all need to keep, then you can also modify your HOSTS file to fix the issue.

  1. Start Notepad as an administrator.
    You can do this by right clicking on the Notepad shortcut in the Start Menu and choosing “Run as administrator”. If you don’t see this option, hold SHIFT while right clicking on it.
  2. Choose File-> Open… and open the following file;
    C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
  3. Add the following line at the bottom.
    127.0.0.1        102.112.2o7.net
  4. Save the file and close Notepad.

Now all the bad requests for the tracking image will be directly rerouted back to your computer which rejects it and causing a time-out which is hardly noticeable.

Edited HOSTS file to redirect the broken PayPal image.
(click on image to enlarge)

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Outlook Hangs (stops responding) Opening Email Messages Sent from PayPal

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

In just the last few days, users have started experiencing some issues with Outlook when opening messages sent from PayPal.

This is happening with the recent versions of Outlook, including Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2007.

Some of the indications of the problem include.

  • Outlook taking longer than normal to open.
  • Outlook with “Reading Pane” on
  • Outlook Stops Responding when clicking on an email from PayPal.
  • If you wait a long time, it will come good, and even show the email message.
  • If you are impatient and cancel out of outlook, your reading pane is gone when you next open it.

When loading Outlook you receive a message about and address: Contacting: \\102.112.207.net\b\ss\paypalglobal\1\G.4-NS

 

It appears that the cause of this is some malformed tracking cookies being sent from PayPal.

While it could be argued that Outlook should handle this invalid link much better than it does… We all know that Microsoft is responsible for Outlook, so really we should not expect too much in the way of “graceful error handling”. (After 20+ years of Windows system events, they still don’t have an online library of error codes and meanings.)

So what to do what to do?

First, I know for a fact that PayPal is aware of this issue, and while it is literally a 10 min fix for the right person, we know that finding the right person probably means contacting the dev team  and asking them to fix their crap!

Oh I have been doing this too long!

Really… what to do!

  1. Nothing… If you are patient when opening email messages from PayPal while this issue happens, then they will open.
  2. Delete all recent messages from PayPal permanently form both your inbox and deleted items.
  3. Turn off the reading pane in Outlook.
  4. Turn your Outlook into plain text preview

After PayPal fix the issue.

The invalid link when fixed will not fix messages already sent with the issue. So unless you permanently delete message with the problem, you will see the trouble each time outlook references them for reading. This is because the reference is totally invalid, not just temporarily down.

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