Newsletter 2011.05

 
 
Posted: Posted in: Newsletter

Welcome to the METHOD IT Newsletter for May 2011

New E-Commerce Website

METHOD IT has just launched megshops.com, the E-Commerce Website for ‘meg’, a women’s fashion brand with stores in New York and Toronto.
We can provide design and development of E-Commerce solutions for businesses of all sizes, including integration with Japanese Payment Gateways and iPhone Apps.

Prepaid Helpdesk

Did you know METHOD IT offers Ad Hoc Support to companies requiring help from time-to-time, without the need for a service level contract?
This service is available by purchasing a number of pre-paid hours, with all hours having an expiry date of one year.

Make your Website Truly International

METHOD IT now provides Website and Web App localization / internationalization services.
We will not only convert your Website to another language, but also redesign its look-and-feel to match trends and expectations in the target locale, whether you are a foreign business entering Japan or a Japanese business looking to reach out to a global, English-speaking market.

Tips & Tricks

News from the Web

Microsoft Buys Skype

Undoubtedly the biggest IT news story of the month is Microsoft’s purchase of Skype for $8.5 billion (around ¥685 billion), the tech-giant’s largest acquistion ever.
This move appears to be a direct challenge to similar consumer and enterprise level technologies offered by Apple, Cisco and Google, and has massive implications for the future of the world’s most popular IM, voice and video chat client on Windows 7/8, Xbox and Windows Phone 7.
It is even being predicted that a Microsoft-backed Skype push may have a negative impact on the providers of domestic phone lines.

Sony Networks Hacked

On April 22nd Sony revealed its global PlayStation Network and media streaming service Qriocity had been hacked a few days earlier. Later, on April 27th they announced that the personal information and credit card details of some 77 million customers had potentially been made accessible to the intruders.
To make matters worse, Sony Online Entertainment was also taken offline on May 2nd after hackers gained access to their subscriber database.
This series of attacks could do untold damage to the  of the company and their online gaming and media services.
In Japan, users were further annoyed that Sony should choose to make announcements regarding the hack and possible compensations through its American HQ in English.
As of May 18th the network services are slowly beginning to be reactived in certain territories with Japan still offline.

Facebook's Google Smear Campaign

On May 13th Facebook admitted it hired Public Relations firm Burson-Marsteller to target prominent bloggers, enticing them to write articles bad-mouthing privacy issues surrounding Google’s new Social Circles feature. Discontent seems to have arisen from the service’s ability to ‘scrape’ Facebook user data. The smear campaign was exposed when one of the contacted bloggers, Christopher Soghoian, chose to post his correspondence with the PR company on the Web. Facebook later expressed regret over the execution of the campaign.

Judgment Days

Fans of the Terminator series will be glad to know that both April 19th and 21st 2011 passed without event – these are the dates Skynet was activated and began its attack against humankind respectively. Jokes abound on the Web tenuously linking this to Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype (left).
Meanwhile in the US, Judgment Day has been slated for May 21st by 89-year-old ‘Family Radio’ Evangelist Harold Camping, and his prediction is receiving a surprising amount of support and unwitting promotion online. This image currently doing the rounds sums up the confusion perfectly.