Tech News w/ contr0l

I Am Back!

2011-08-20T06:45:00.009-05:00

Been going thru alot of personal issues, and I will try to start posting more Tech News as it comes.

I will try to make a Post a Day, or atleast a Post a Week.

Sorry it’s been a while…

2010-04-11T00:41:00.001-05:00

I haven’t been able to blog in a long time due to a lot of personal issues in my life. But it seems that things might sorting themselves out. But I wanted to discuss was happened recently.

If you know me, you know I love TrueCrypt. I encrypt my external 1 tb drive with 3 cascading ciphers. I encrypt it 3 times over and only mount when I need it.

That being said, TrueCrypt also lets you encrypt your system drive, on The Fly! The drive with Windows on it. It then prompts for the pass to decrypt it before it will even boot. For some reason, the day before I chose to decrypt the system drove. which is an On-The_Fly Process and can be interrupted without any issues. During encryption or decryption, if you need to reboot or something, its ok, it will pick up where you left off.

Well, that’s the thing, I never resumed it once I interrupted the decryption process. So the next time I rebooted It would not take the password. So I couldn't boot. At All! So I had to end up formatting the damn thing and reinstalling windows 7. Which Sucked. I hate having to reinstall all of my apps.

Well, I tried out the new Ubuntu Linux 10.4 (Lucid Lynx) first, and it was awesome. This pc is core 2 duo 2.33 GHz, 4gb ram, and it booted in seconds. VERY fast. Didn’t time it, but it was around 15-20 seconds from completely off to a desktop. But I did time the shutdowns, I did 5, and all 5 times it shutdown in 3-4 seconds, fully. Incredible.

I would’ve stuck with it, but I have a lot of windows programs I use, and I know I could use wine, but I’ve gotten used to Windows 7 and really like it. So I went back to win7. But, I WILL be installing Ubuntu on the kids HP mini tonight! They've used Ubuntu for 2 years until windows 7 came out, so they’re familiar with Ubuntu and Windows, but I bet it'll make their HP mini FLY. Ill post the progress when I start that process. Anyway, I’m back on now! Peace!

Google Voice is a Savior!

2009-07-17T15:14:00.003-05:00

<-- Check this out over on the side of my blog! ---->

I got an email a few days ago saying I was invited to Google Voice. I had almost forgot I requested the invitation. Well I figured Id give it a go, and I'm glad I did. Let me start by saying, my situation is different than many, but I'm also sure many others are in my same shoes. When I signed up for my Internet service, I told them I also wanted the most basic home phone package they offered. I got a package giving me only 25 outbound calls month, no LD, but as many incoming calls as I wanted. Fast forward to today. I set up Google Voice, choose a phone number I wanted, but only had 1 phone # to attach to it. The point of the service, is for you to attach say your home phone, your cell, and your work phone. Then when anyone calls the number you selected, (your Google Voice #), it rings all the attached phone #'s to reach you. So I only attached 1 #, and started playing around with it.

It's interface is very well known as it mimics the Gmail Experience. With 'labels' on the left side for organization, and all voice mails displayed like Gmails are with check boxes to perform many actions. Anytime you get a voicemail, it shows all the expected info like phone number, if its a contact it'll show the name, it also transcribes the voicemail into text and displays as an email. With a play button to play the actual audio of the voicemail, with seeking. So it was very easy to get to using the service.

I also noticed on the left at the top was a button for Call, and one for SMS. The SMS button lets you type in a phone # and a message and sends it as a txt (SMS) message from your Google Voice #. The Call feature is why I am blogging about this service. Again, I get a very limited number of outbound calls a month, but as many incoming as I want. I clicked the call button, and it brings up a form to type in the # I want to call. It then me on my phone, and as soon as I answer it, it connects me to the # I typed in to call. FOR FREE ANYWHERE IN THE US! Free Long Distance, watch out ATT! I bet they re pissed. So now not only do I get unlimited free long distance in the US, but It doesn't affect my monthly outbound calls, as Google Calls Me then connects me to the #. So awesome!

The fact that theres so many options is very cool as well. I had a friend call me, and I had left an option called Call Presentation On(which it is by default, this allows some of the advertises features, like listen to voice mails as they re being left!) I was called and I hear, You have a call from.. "Jason" (he recorded his name), and I can press 1 to answer, or 2 to send to voicemail. If i press 2, I can listen to the voicemail he leaves, as he leaves it. You can also record any incoming phone calls by pressing 4 on your phones dial pad after you answer. (privacy concerns?)

All I can say is this service is bad ass and is going to save me a lot of money each month. I hope it stays around for a while, and telecoms companies don't lobby to have it taken down. I love the little blog widget it has also, its on this page to the right. If you click it, type in your name, and your phone number, it'll call you .. then connect you to me! I think this is by far Google's best service, even above search and gmail. But thats just my $0.02 Thanks Google!

My Take on Google's Chrome OS

2009-07-09T15:23:00.005-05:00

Yesterday Google announced that it is has been working on its own Operating System. It will be Linux based and will be appearing on netbooks in the 2nd half of 2010 to begin with, eventually landing on Desktops as a full fledged OS, or so they say.

Now anyone who knows me knows I'm all for Google as a company, and like all of their product offerings and advise friends to use them. The main one I push, even over Gmail is Google's Chrome Browser. Chrome is so fast and simple to use. But I don't think that Chrome web browser will lead to a good OS. That being said, I do think the OS will be a very good, secure, and fast OS. The reason I'm not too thrilled about the idea is how they are explaining it in the blog post announcing it. I'm not the type of person who would trade off my actual software for web applications, and the fact that they are hinting at people not even needing desktop apps is almost insulting. They said, "You wont miss Office, you'll have Google Apps." What about all the other software I run that can't/won't/isn't be cloud based?

I'd be all for an speedy OS that's based off Linux, runs x86 or ARM architecture, and is VERY tightly integrated with all of Google's Service offering. (Which already exists with gOS 3.1 Gadgets. Which btw i just installed in a virtual machine yesterday to test out, and is a very nice Linux distro, and VERY tightly integrated with Google services). Now, I can't speculate much as they didn't give a lot of details about the OS, but if they're entirely banking on having all apps web based and running in the cloud, then count me out. I can't put my trust in my apps running on some vendors hardware. And dealing with their up time "guarantees", or with their services not being accessible to some issue they are having. Granted they are huge and will likely offer the 5 9's for up time, but I guess I just don't like the fact that I will not have control.

All in all, if they go the route of not allowing users to install normal software at all, (aside from drivers and things the OS needs), then this OS will likely tank. Well in Google's case, I wouldn't say tank, but more like become a niche product that will not be as big as they'd like. Now if scenario 2 plays out, and the OS is still based on the browser more than anything else, but still allows 'hard' software (i kinda like that term) to be installed, ala Old School, then Google will have a winner on their hands. One that will be just the thing Linux needs to grab more of the market currently pwned by Microsoft Windows. This could be just the thing Linux needs, or just one more push that ultimately leads to a minor increase in usage.

Maybe its just me, but again, I'd like to reiterate, I don't like the notion of not being able to have normal software installed and stored locally, and having to rely on web based apps totally. Which are growing, but don't even cover a small percentage of a lot of normal every day activities. I'm one of those 'All Arounders' when it comes to computing. I know netbooks aren't for things like video editing, etc, but people will want to do some things they normally do. I do audio sequence production (Making Beats [FLStudio 8]), Audio Post Production (Adobe Audition), Video Editing (Adobe Premiere CS4), Web Design (Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, Flash CS4), Record video of my kids with my camcorder, edit it, and then burn to DVD (ConvertXtoDVD), watch movies (VLC. They also said there is no need for a media player when you have youtube, hulu, and the likes. Which almost pissed me off. What about Downloaded movies, not pirated, Netflix? What about actual DVDs?) Anyway, straying off point there in a lil fit of anger. But what im saying, is that even with the large growth of web apps, they CANNOT take the place totally of locally installed software. And even a push in that direction, is a wrong turn! But, again, a push in the direction of tighter integration of web apps into the OS.... I'm all for it. And everyone else will be too, enthusiastically. Almost seems like an All or Nothing type of situation. This is either going to do Very well, or Very Bad. I'm hoping it does well, and wishing the best to Google. As it's dev's are very intelligent and capable people and their work is always good. Lets all hope that company politics doesn't end of making the Dev's look like they don't know what they're doing. Their previous works show they have what it takes to make awesome web apps. Google, Don't Be Evil!

First Google Chrome OS Screenshots Leaked Already?

2009-07-09T04:31:00.005-05:00

It's not much, in fact, these screenshots are incredibly easy to fake. Still, a hastily constructed WordPress blog has been setup to host what are claimed to be the world's first screenshots of Google's new Chrome OS -- hailed as both a Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X killer or Google FUD generator depending upon who you're listening to. As the story is told, a Google representative demonstrated a private beta build of the OS to an anonymous Acer parts supplier yesterday, presumably somewhere in Taiwan. The picture above was grabbed breathlessly while the Google rep was distracted. Highlights of the demonstration break down as follows:

The "elegant" install on the Acer Extensa 4620Z laptop took about 10 minutes and 1 restart
Reboots desktop-to-desktop in about 25 seconds
It was "amazingly fast" in its stripped-down beta form
The blue orb on the auto-hiding "Chrome Bar" along the bottom of the UI is essentially the start menu
Navigating the file system can be done in "exploration" (like Windows explorer) or "browser" (search based) modes
The Chrome Bar can also host a search bar if configured
Future Chrome OS netbooks will feature an iconified Chrome key on the keyboard similar to the Windows flag key

Of course, it's a long, long time before this OS appears on next generation ARM and x86 smartnetbooks -- second half of 2010 according to the Goog -- so who knows what the interface will look like by then. One more image after the break. [Thanks, Matthew M.]

Source: Engadget.com

Google Is Already Working With PC Makers on New Chrome OS

2009-07-08T15:31:00.003-05:00

Google plans to announce within the next day or so the names of PC makers in Taiwan and China that have already signed on to work with its new Chrome operating system, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The list will be similar in style to that made for Google's Android mobile operating system, on the Open Handset Alliance Web site.

The new Chrome OS will compete against Microsoft Windows in netbooks, laptop computers and desktops. Google is developing the Linux-based operating system for heavy Internet users, and it will begin appearing in netbooks in the second half of 2010, the company said in a blog posting.

Chrome's user interface will be demonstrated by the end of this year, said Caroline Hsu, a spokeswoman for Google in Taipei.

The Chrome OS and Android are distinctly different operating systems, she added. Android was designed for small mobile devices as well as TV set-top boxes and netbooks, while the Chrome OS will work in larger devices, from netbooks to desktops.

The Google initiative poses a significant threat to Microsoft's software dominance in the global PC industry, but the Windows maker will be very difficult to beat, analysts say.

"Microsoft has such a huge installed base of users and developers, it's hard to beat that," said Bryan Ma, director of personal systems research at IDC Asia-Pacific. Google will have to prove it can attract developers to create applications and device drivers to make sure the Chrome OS works with the many computers and peripherals available.

Google's strong brand name will be one key to its success.

"I think the Google name is going to give it some legs," said Ma, but the user experience will be the ultimate determiner of victory. Microsoft has been challenged before, particularly by companies offering different variations of Linux OSs, but these rival efforts have failed, he said.

With the Chrome OS, Google wants to run programs through the Internet and the Chrome browser, but that could cause latency problems, Ma said. "How robust will it be versus a Windows software program?" he asked.

Google's first stab at an operating system found success due to the Google name and the industry it's aimed at, mobile phones. Mobile phone users often work with different operating systems and that has helped Android. But the computing world is dominated by Microsoft, giving people very different expectations for how their software runs.

Microsoft declined to comment on this article.

The Chrome OS will work on computers with different kinds of microprocessors inside, including the x86 architecture used by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and the ARM architecture, which is commonly found in mobile devices.

Intel's Asia-Pacific spokesman Nick Jacobs said Google's new OS further validates the netbook category of mobile devices. He called Chrome an example of innovation creating opportunity in the information technology industry and more choice for consumers.

Acer, the world's third largest PC vendor, was unable to immediately provide a comment, while Asustek Computer declined to comment.

Source: PCWorld.com

Google Chrome OS An Open Source Challenge to Windows

2009-07-08T15:28:00.004-05:00

As has been predicted for some time, Google has announced a new operating system project: Google Chrome OS. This is separate from Android, Google's mobile phone OS.

Initially aimed at netbooks, but seemingly intended to mature into a platform for all kinds of computing devices, Chrome OS is a "open source, lightweight operating system". It won't be available until the second half of 2010, but the source code will be made available later this year, so I wouldn't be surprised if we see some kind of usable release about that time too.

At the heart of the OS is Google's Chrome browser. In fact, the operating system appears to be little more than a secure platform for the browser to run upon. Google says the following: "Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds."

It's no exaggeration to say that Google Chrome OS may well turn out to be epoch-defining. It's the iPod of its time, in that it's not necessarily unique or even ground-breaking, but future historians will probably acknowledge its significance. It's important for all kinds of reasons, but here are just a few:

1. It's open source.

There aren't many details right now but Chrome OS appears to be based on a Linux kernel with a custom windowing system. It's worth remembering that windowing/desktop interfaces matter less when you consider this is simply a browser-based operating system designed to get you online and push you towards online applications.

Make no mistake: Chrome OS is attempting to evolve the operating system and get away from metaphors created in the 1970s at Xerox PARC, as I've discussed several times before(How Open Source Can Beat the Status Quo, The Future Is BIOS and Browsers). The browser really is the future.

2. Google is taking the battle into Microsoft's territory.

Google is producing a product that directly competes with Windows. To add insult to injury, it's open source -- the one thing that Microsoft really hates.

You have to give Google points for style here.

Commentators might be wondering why Google isn't licensing existing Microsoft technologies, but that would miss the point entirely. By using open source, Google is positioning itself diametrically opposite Microsoft. In some ways, Google had no choice but to embrace open source.

But Chrome OS marks a serious escalation of the war between the two companies, especially considering that Google is cleverly targeting the two traditional weaknesses in Microsoft products: security and speed. We can soon expect a casual announcement from Steve Ballmer, made "in passing" to a journalist, that attempts to pop Google's bubble. However, I suspect there are a lot of sweaty-palmed people at Microsoft right now. The laser printer may well be spewing resumes.

Microsoft really is dead in the water. It might be churning a profit right now, but it's business model and products have reached the natural end of their life and Microsoft just hasn't evolved or changed to keep up. It's a 20th century company, doing 20th century stuff. The rest of the world is moving on.

The key issue for Microsoft is this: Google has a lot of trust out there in the real world. This is the crucial strength that can really land a sucker punch on Microsoft. The likes of mom and pop, who don't even know what Windows is (much to Microsoft's glee), will trust Google enough to blindly switch to the new OS. (Especially if, on a technical level, Chrome OS uses something like Wubi to make installation ultra-easy and safe.)

If you're a geek who helps out non-techie people, you should get to know about Google Chrome OS because you'll almost certainly be getting questions about it soon.

3. Google is going to own your desktop experience.

Google already intends to own your mobile phone, and it's owned your Internet searches since about 2000. For many of us, it's owned our email since about 2004 too.

Many people assume that Google is producing all this wonderful software out of the goodness of its heart, or simply to give Microsoft a hard time. While I suspect both these reasons are true to an extent (I believe Google is actually quite a philanthropic organisation), many people forget Google's ruthless purpose in life: It wants to own every shred of data you generate.

To do this, it is giving you the tools to produce that data: email, office applications, and now an entire operating system. Google doesn't want to literally "own" your data of course; Google's clever enough to realise nobody owns anything online, especially data. It just wants to be the exclusive agent when it comes to cataloguing and sorting your data.

There will undoubtedly be privacy concerns about the new OS. The EULA will probably attempt to give Google unfettered access to your entire online life. There will almost certainly be a scandal about it, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. If Microsoft is looking for an attack point, this is probably its best opportunity, although Microsoft will also need to ensure it is clean as a whistle in this regard too. And I doubt it can. When it comes to privacy, Google and Microsoft will probably take an 'honor amongst thieves' approach, and neither will mention it much.

4. Chrome OS is just another sign that open source is going for an all-out attack on the netbook arena.

Google Chrome OS, Intel Moblin v2, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and various other renditions of Linux that have been found on netbooks. It's hard to name another area of computing where there's such a concentration of innovation and sheer effort. Microsoft might have won the early battle by allowing WinXP to be installed on netbooks, but there's precious little evidence that it's won the war. The battle really hasn't yet begun.

It's worth mentioning that Chrome runs on ARM chips -- widely seen as the future of netbooks, due to their stunningly low-power requirements -- as well as traditional x86 processors. Microsoft has always been exclusively x86 with its desktop OS. Again, the world is moving on, but Microsoft is staying still.

In the next year or two you might expect to see yet another antitrust allegation made against Microsoft, which is extending its Windows 7 monopoly onto netbooks. This undoubtedly gives the company an uncompetetitve advantage. Google may well be the company that takes them on. In fact, I'll bet plans are being drawn-up in a lawyer's office right now.

Cynics and conspiracy theorists might even suggest that Chrome OS is partially a tool to drag Microsoft back into the courtroom in an attempt to do some serious damage.

Source: tech.yahoo.com

Five Things Google’s Chrome OS Will Do for Your Netbook

2009-07-08T14:17:00.002-05:00

Chrome OS, Google’s newly announced computer operating system, is coming this autumn and promises to revolutionize netbooks and other underpowered machines. Essentially, the OS is a small, fast-booting platform whose purpose is to run a browser, and from there all the Google apps and other web services you know and love. But why bother? Your netbook already has a browser and access to Google’s applications. What could Chrome do for you and your netbook?

Cost

Netbooks are cheap. So cheap that a disproportionately large chunk of the cost is made up of a Windows license. Ever wondered why the Linux versions of netbooks cost around $50 less? Microsoft tax. Chrome OS is based on Linux and will, like most Google products, be free, bringing the price of a $500 netbook down by 10 percent.

Speed

Windows 7 runs faster than Vista on a netbook. Scratch that. Windows 7 runs on a netbook, period. But Chrome OS is designed to run on low-powered Atom and ARM processors, and web-based applications don’t require that much horsepower on the client end so it should be faster still. Better, it will be small. Google is promising boot times measured in seconds, not minutes, so battery life should also get a boost — it will be possible to cold boot instead of sleeping or hibernating the machine, saving precious juice.

Compatibility

Google says that “[Users] don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates.” One of the big problems with using anything but Windows XP on a netbook has been drivers. Try installing OS X on one if you don’t believe us, or any version of Linux not specifically designed for your model. If Google can come up with an OS that can be downloaded, dropped onto any machine and then “just works,” we might just have the ultimate portable OS.

Portability

Netbooks are meant for the road. At home, a bigger computer is almost always better but when traveling, a netbook shines. Swapping between the two is a pain, though. With Chrome, you can bet that all of Google’s service — Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa and so on — will be built-in and have offline access via Google Gears. If you are a good Google Citizen and use all these services, you’ll never have to worry about having all your latest data with you, whether you have a net connection or not.

New Applications

With its web services, Google has been slowly duplicating everything that we can do locally on our computers. Almost. There are a few things that Google doesn’t do yet, most notably a video player and a music jukebox. Sure, there’s YouTube, but what happens when you want to watch something other than a skateboarding dog in a blender? There are open-source options: The awesome VLC video player has just reached v1.0, for example, and the Songbird music player, based on Firefox, can even sync with an iPod. Both already run on some flavors of Linux.

Google may use these, buy them or even roll its own. One thing is sure, though: If Google can put out a whole OS that is as clean, fast and focused as its individual web products, the Chrome OS could be a revolution. A free revolution that could be making Microsoft extremely uncomfortable right now.

Google Announces PC Operating System to Compete with Windows [Wired - Epicenter]
Product page [Google]

Original photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

See Also:

Source: Charlie Sorrel @ Wired.com

Google Announces PC Operating System to Compete with Windows

2009-07-08T13:46:00.002-05:00

Google is releasing a lightweight, open-source PC-operating system later this year, the company announced Tuesday night, a move that threatens the very heart of Microsoft, long seen as Google’s biggest rival.

Chrome OS is intended to be a very lightweight, quick-starting operating system whose central focus is supporting Google’s Chrome browser. Applications will run mostly inside the browser, making the web — not the desktop — into the computer’s default operating system.

It’s a sign that Google truly believes in the age of cloud computing — where the usefulness of a computer is in its connection to the net where data is stored remotely and information processing happens in a dance between a browser and remote servers.

The Linux-based OS is the second for Google, following on Android, another open-source OS that intended for small devices such as mobile phones. Chrome OS will first be on netbooks — the popular lightweight and inexpensive notebook computers — in the second half of 2010, the company said in a blog post. Desktops will come later.

The code itself will be released under an unspecified open-source license at the end of the year.

The announcement included some not so veiled jabs at Microsoft.

People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. [...] Even more importantly, they don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates.

Google has already laid the ground work for a web OS by revolutionizing webmail with Gmail’s speed, features and capacity (now over 7GB). It followed that with free online word processing and spreadsheet software. Add in its online photo sharing services, and the myriad other online applications from Facebook to customized radio station Pandora, and most common uses of a computer can be done through a browser.

With Tuesday’s announcement, Google is going after Microsoft’s most lucrative and dominant business — the operating system.

Google is implicitly making the argument that there’s no need to pay the premium for a Microsoft OS, when there is lighter, faster and free. And Google is arguing, rather persuasively, that the Web and modern, standards-based browsers like Chrome, Safari, Opera and Firefox are where innovative third-party development is taking place these days.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

More to the point, more web usage equals more money for Google, which basically makes more money the more people use the web — thanks to its dominant ad platform that brought in more than $5 billion in revenue in the first three months of 2009.

Microsoft has been looking forward to the fall release of Windows 7, its successor to the not-well received Vista. Windows 7 beta releases have gotten good reviews. It’s a bit more compicated in the enterprise space, where IT departments are slow to migrate to anything, but for the average consumer the question now becomes, why ever pay again for a Microsoft operating system, unless you are a gamer or run custom, legacy software?

If indeed Google puts out a fast, easy to use operating system that lets netbooks soar and free users from constant software patches, Microsoft will find it very hard to explain to consumers why they should continue to use its software, other than just out of a foolish consistency.

Don’t be evil, Google’s unofficial motto, has long been understood as code for “Don’t be Microsoft.” Perhaps, it ought now it ought to be augmented with the commandment, “Leave no Microsoft product unchallenged.”

See Also:

via Official Google Blog.

Source: Ryan Singel

Im Back!

2009-07-02T23:10:00.006-05:00

"Im Back like a braziere hook, bitch cheer!" - lil wayne

Sorry guys, but Ive been a bit out of it lately and busy. Still looking for work. I will be posting more often now. A lot of new developments in the tech news, and Ill try to cover them all soon enough.

* HTML5 looses specific codec support, but keeps video tag (ppl seem to think the video tag is dropped all together from the spec. From what I gathered, its only dropping specific codec support for either ogg theora or h.264. This will leave this decision upto the webmaster to choose which type of video. Just like with the img tag. This is how it should be.)

* ThePirateBay being sold for 7.8 million. Going Legit ;(

* Facebook got vanity URLs

* Windows overtook linux on the netbook. Go figure ;(

* DOJ investigating Google for Google Books

* Lori drew aquitted with judge overturning previous decision in Myspace cyber-bullying case

* Iphone 3GS burning people's ears overheating

And Many more that I will get into soon to come.

Finally got me a 1TB Drive!!!

2009-03-23T16:20:00.015-05:00

Yes, it arrived today via UPS! "Dang 1tb on this lil thing?!?" It took me a while, but I finally talked my wife into letting me order a 1tb drive. For the guys, this might come in handy... I told her, that my other external drive, which is an external 100 gb Seagate that has all of our Music, Programs, Documents, etc... was full, which it was, and only had 1 gb free. And that I had already deleted everything I was willing to and it was already full again. And that Im not willing to delete anything more of mine. I said "We can delete all your music or spend $100 on a new hard drive." She agreed. Yes!

So now came the task of deciding which brand and type to go with for a new drive. Ive always stuck with one of the 3 major hard drive players, Seagate, Western Digital, or Maxtor. Now I've recently been reading up on all the problems with certain lines of Seagate 1tb and 1.5 Barracuda drives having alot of issues, just dying. I knew it was only certain models, but I guess that got stuck in the back of my head, and kinda pushed Seagate to the bottom of my barrel of choices. Even though I currently have had an external 100 gb Seagate for over 2 years and haven't had a single issue with it. Ive also heard of issues with Maxtor and read that they haven't been doing as well as others recently. So this led me to Western Digital. Now, reading forums does help you get reviews/info on all of your choices, but you get mixed opinions, and a lot of them too. You'll find people who vouch for the same product the next commenter said he had 4 of that died within 6 months. So you can get a feel for which to use, but you get those die hard brand-fanatics who try to sway you one way or the other as well. I personally chose according to price-to-GB ratio, while making sure it was one of the top 3 guys in the HDD game.

My best friend just got himself a badass 1tb drive about a month or 2 before I did, and he chose the Fantom Green Drive, 1tb. I almost got the exact same one, being that it was only $10 more than the one I ended up getting. Taken from the Fantom Website: The Fantom GreenDrive line of external USB and eSATA disk drives feature the latest advances in power saving technology and ROHS (Restriction of Hazardous

Substances Directive) compliant materials and process. But I wanted to get something different. So I headed to newegg.com and ran some searches. I compared a good number of drives, and googled each for reviews.

I ended up settling for the Western Digital Elements 1TB Drive.

The casing just looked very sturdy, and all of my externals are on semi-high shelves on my computer desk. Today when I unboxed it, it was just as sturdy as it looked from the picture online. It's a strong black metal case and each end has a thick black rubber end cap which adds to the durability of the drive, and also allows the metal case to NOT sit on your desk surface. Metal + wood desk = bad things. I plugged it in and it was automatically detected, and came with an autorun.inf and an icon, that was set to be the icon for the drive in My Computer. I haven't looked it all the way over, but theres no apparent LED's indicating activity as my other externals all have. Before copying anything to the drive I noticed it was FAT32, so the first thing I did was to do a QuickFormat to NTFS. The drive is USB 2.0 only , no firewire, but I dont personally have any firewire ports, but I do have a USB 2.0 - 7 port hub.

I encrypt all my drives, external drives, flash drives, etc with TrueCrypt, which is Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux and is on par with PGP (known as best encryption software, it and TrueCrypt), for encryption. TrueCrypt can encrypt drives, even the system drive C:\, on-the-fly. You dont have to boot up with some utility, or stop running any applications, it encrypts the whole contents of your drive, again, even the system drive, on-the-fly, as you go about working normally. For all of my external drives, flash drives, etc.. I cascade all 3 different supported encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. I also encrypt my Windows System Drive with TrueCrypt, but only with one encryption algorithm, AES. Cascading more than one encryption algortihm has side effects when working with your system drive, which are explained in detail on their website. Actually it was explained to me when I tried to do it, via a Popup message within the program. It basically explained some technical reason that cascading more than one Encryption Algorithm for your System Drive, will most likely cause you to have to boot from a rescue disk each time you boot. So I just used 1 algorithm, I went with the standard AES encryption and SHA-512 for my system drive, and haven't had any problems booting or anything at all. I also encrypt my daughter's Laptops which Run Ubuntu Linux. The Linux version is almost identical to the Windows version, except I couldn't encrypt the Linux System Drive the same as I could the other computer's Windows System Drive on-the-fly, or not even at all. I honestly forget if it just didnt have the option, or if another one of those Popups came up advising of issues if I proceeded. But If memory serves, it didn't even have the option. So maybe only Encrypted File Containers, (which is the method I explain later that allows to you create an encrypted file, and mount it as a drive). As well, all of my external drives cascade all 3 supported encryption algorithms.

This program is very nice in that it lets you create a encrypted volume and specify location of the encrypted file, Encryption Algorithm, Volume Size, etc.. As everyone knows, even though the drive is a 1TB drive, Windows only sees it as 931.4 GB. (which Ive always said they should overshoot how much they give you, so that your OS actually Reads 1tb, but hey thats just me). Also, when encrypting a system drive, it allows you to do so as a Standard Volume or as a Hidden Volume. (This lets you install your encrypted OS, give it a boot-time password, and use this OS only to store all your very important stuff on. But you also have a Second Password that can be typed at boot-time, and if you type in the second password, it lets you boot to a Decoy OS. Which it advises to use as your main OS, store some semi-important stuff, and normal PC use on the decoy OS. So this way, if you're ever FORCED into revealing your password, you type the password for the decoy OS, and it boots the decoy OS, instead of the real encrypted OS, and looks 'Real' being that its the OS you use as your normal OS. Again, only store the very important stuff you never want found on the real encrypted OS. It hides the volume in a way so that it's impossible to even prove that another OS/partition exists.)

So I went through the process of creating a 931GB Standard Encrypted Volume in TrueCrypt and placed it on the 1TB drive. After setting all options: Encryption Algorithm(s), Location and Name of Encrypted File Container, Size, and Password, It tells you to move your mouse as randomly as possible within the window to generate very strong encryption keys using the mouse cursor's X,Y coordinates as Random Data (salt), as you move the mouse around. It says to do this as long as you can, the longer you do it, the stronger the encryption. I just diddled and daddled around moving the mouse in the window for about 5 minutes, tracing letters, outling the picture, jerking the mouse around in circles and random squiley figure 8's, and other shapes as fast as I could. I also move it very fast and Big (wide spanning), like making it Not stay within the window at all times, this way when the mouse leaves the window, and re-enters the window at a different X,Y, its not close to the X, Y it left the window at. Just seems more random to me. This process says it will take 14 hours to create the volume! Damn, when doing the same thing for my 100gb drive, it took less than an hour. Im sure it would be faster if I only chose 1 encryption algorithm, but again, I use 3. If your going to goto the lengths of even encrypting the data on your new drive, then why settle for one Encryption Algorithm when you can have it encrypted 3 times over with 3 different methods. The extra time is worth it.

For the Encrypted System Drive, I chose a standrard volume, not hidden. So no DecoyOS. Now everytime I boot up, it asks for my TrueCrypt System Drive Encryption Password before Windows even starts to load. Then once it starts loading, you type in your normal Windows Password, and Windows fully boots, TrueCrypt is running in the system tray. I open it, and it lists all the available drive letters your computer isn't currently using. Select a drive letter, thenclick 'Select File...' to browse and locate the encrypted file we just created. Then hit 'Mount'. It will popup and ask you for the Encryption Password you set when creating the Encrypted Volume. Type in the Password, and it mounts that file as a Drive in My Computer using the drive letter you selected in TrueCrypt. So now I open My Computer, and I see my C:, the 1TB drive itself, and the 931GB Mounted Drive with the contents of the encrypted file. (The only thing on the 1TB Drive itself is a 931gb file I named 1tb, and a folder I made that has all the TrueCrypt Setup Files for Windows, Mac, and many versions of Linux. This way the setup file for TrueCrypt and the encrypted file are on the same drive, so I can install TrueCrypt on any computer I take my drive to, mount my encrypted file, and work normally).

So in conclusion, I guess I chose the one I chose because I do like Western Digital, I didn't read as many bad things about WD as I did the others. I already have a Seagate. Read about too many bad experiences with Maxtor over the good experiences with them. I would've got the Fantom GreenDrive, but my friend already had that one, and I wanted a different one. Plus this one was only $109.99 and the Fantom was $119.99. So I saved $10. All in all, after shipping and everything I paid $121.??. for a very nice, sleek and sturdy, External Western Digital Elements 1TB Drive. I think it's well worth it. What do you think? Did I make the right choice? Did I go about chosing the right one for me, the right way? How else should I have based my decision? What would you have chosen for that price range-to-hard drive space ratio? Know of any better deals than I got, $109.99? Leave some comments.

ThePirateBay Trial is now over, waiting for results on April 17th

2009-03-04T02:21:00.012-06:00

Yesterday, 03/03/09, the trial against the 4 founders of ThePirateBay came to an end with both sides lawyers giving their closing arguments. After all was said and done, the prosecution had to drop half of the charges due to lack of evidence on day 2 of the trial. Thats an epic win in itself. Now all thy are being charged with is "Making copyrighted material available" not any of the more serious charges. This shows the prosecution are dumb arses and basically gave the trial to TPB.

Over on the pirate bays trial blog site, the most recent post is as follows:

Today was the last day of the (first?) trial against The Pirate Bay.

"First let us pose a huge thnx to internets for all the tremendous support and help we have seen. We would like to thank you for the millions(sic!) of tweets, emails, songs, smiles, blog posts, judicial advices, videos, comments, torrents, articles, translations, services, ideas and love that has been produced around the spectrial.

This thank you goes out not only to all internets, but also to the cops, court house clerks, coffeeshop waiters, bank officials, average joes, kids, friends, adversaries etc. that has helped us along the way.
We would like to put out a special thank you to our busdrivers, putting up with our blatantly chaotic organisation.
Back to the trial. Yesterday the prosecution plead for banning the essence of the internets, the links. Today the defence responded claiming that services of this kind never can be illegal.
The sentence will not be presented until the 17th of April. While waiting for this big day, we in the Spectrial team already has started to plan what we’re going to perform to celebrate the victory of the internets.
We have already written history, actually more than once. Now we are creating the future."

The url for this blog is http://trial.thepiratebay.org
My post on the trial blog, says it all:
The prosecution dropped all the serious chargs (half of the total charges, the bad ones) on the 2nd day. Now what they are pursuing will be easily side stepped by all the mistakes the prosecution made during this trial. I bet the court/judge was laughing at the dumb arse prosecution who couldn’t even supply the main witness who was investigating TPB. This will be a swift lesson in justice, OUR justice! -contr0l
The best part of it all, is that while all 4 defendants were in court, ThePirateBay went down. During closing arguments, one defendant, Fredrik Neij, one of the PirateBay admins currently on trial in Stockholm, admitted that he was hupping his servers from the courtroom while the lawyers were making closing arguments:
- A server was down and I restarted it, Neij tells expressen.se. He is one of the four founders of The Pirate Bay that stand accused of “complicity to making copyrighted material accessible” (yes, that’s the charge). That didn’t stop him from taking care of a server mishap in the middle of the trial’s closing argument.
Thepiratebay.org was down during the best part of Monday, which had a good deal of file-sharing folks worried that the website might be down for good this time. Thankfully for them, he had his trusty laptop at hand and could restart the server remotely, so that eager fileswappers could get back inside.
-We have Internet access [in the court room] so it was no problem, Neij told Expressen today (Tuesday);
-Besides, I’m keeping up with the coverage of the trial.
The farcical battle between a sadly incompetent prosecution vs. knowledgeable and sometimes loud-mouthed defendants is almost at an end, and the fact that Neij manages thepiratebay.org’s servers remotely during the trial is just one of several examples that point out the huge gap in technical know-how that the prosecution has exhibited.
However, I don't agree wit the fact, that all the time prior to the case, each of these guys, aside from lundstrom, have all been well known for their "Screw the Man attitude. [The man being Recording Industry and Movie Industry and others alike].. But as soon as it comes time to goto court, each one took a "I didnt do anything illegal, i just ran the site" or "Im only the spokesman for the site" or "Blame our 20 million users, not us." How did it get to be from on end of the spectrum to the other so fast? From "Screw the man, let him come get me!" to "It wasnt me, I just did ___." Because their asses were on the line. Now I agree with the whole philosophy, and still admire the founders for their balls. But when it cam down to it, they folded. tisk tisk tpb. I still hope they win, as their rooted philosophy still holds precedent in my heart! All Media All Free
So now we just hold our breath until April 17, 2009 awaiting the outcome of this trial. But with all the ball-dropping the prosecution did, we are all getting plans together to throw a "ThePirateBay WON party once the final verdict is in! Go TPB!

We need a Google Dashboard

2009-02-25T21:10:00.002-06:00

Recently I've been noticing that a lot of Google services are now added Single Sign On (SSO) abilities to Google Owned sites. (Allowing you to login with your google login, ie: your gmail email)

Like Blogspot, Youtube, Google Docs, and almost all the other Google owned services. Rather than having to have a separate login for each site. This is a very nice feature for Google to add, as it makes logging into each site a lot easier for us end-users. Which keeps users logged in for longer.

Now the only thing they need to add is some type of a dashboard. A single page that shows All Google services that allow the Single Sign On service. It should list all Google services that allow SSO, and specifically which ones that you use. The reason it should list them all is for the, "Oh cool, google has one of those.." factor. Because people like me will be happy to switch to anything google owned and operated because of the knowledge and ability that you know is behind it. But a service listing with an indicator of which I use and more information. Or just integrate that as a plugin for iGoogle. I know there are many iGoogle users and fans, but I personally think a dashboard of this type should be considered its own project, rather than a piece of iGoogle. Anyway, I think this would really tie everything together with all of googles online services. leave your comments.

We got a dog! Named Lucky

2009-02-03T23:53:00.001-06:00

Say hello to Lucky! She is the newest member of our family. I wanted to surprise my 2 daughters, who have never had a dog yet, with a puppy. So I went to craigslist and was pricing all different types of puppies. I came across an ad by a man near me who said he found a bag on the side of the road, and in it were 2 puppies. He took them home and cared for them and put the ad on craigslist as he already owned 2 dogs. I cant believe people will do these kind of things. There are so many places that will take in animals. Humane Society, Animal Control, etc.. Its so sad that people can just abandon a dog like that.

I arranged to meet the man at a nearby Home Depot and he brought both puppies with him. Both were cute as can be, but we could only take one. As soon as he opened the back door of his SUV, Lucky ran up and started licking my youngest, so I think that’s why we, scratch that, SHE chose that one. We call her Lucky because she is a very lucky dog that this man took care of her until we got her. We were going to call her Socks, because she's got all black legs with white feet.

I think she is a lab mix, and it looks like she might be a lab and Pit mix. She's very feisty and energetic. We haven't yet gotten her house broken so were constantly having to catch her in the act, rub her nose in it, and take her outside. I read online that if you don’t actually catch them in the act, that you can’t scold them. Then the associate doing their business with being a bad thing. So just clean it up and forget it. But if you see her start her routine of sniffing and walking in circles then carry her to the area you want her to go. Pushing their tale down while you carry them will make it so she wont go while your carrying her. If you actually catch them in the act, I read not to hit or pop them, but to rub their nose in it and scold them with a stern voice saying, “No!” and/or “Bad Dog!”. So we’ve been trying this, and it seems to be working sort of. She now walks over to the news paper and has gone on the news paper more than off it now. Also anytime we take her outside, we live on the third floor in an apartment so its not as much as I’d like, she goes fine outside. Our apartments have a trash can in the middle of the grass, with little green baggies to walk behind your dog and pick up its… business.

Here’s a few more shots I took with my camera phone. Ill take some more with the camera soon.

We’ve gotten her a lot of different toys and types of food to see what she takes too, and we’ve been having a lot of fun with her. Aside form cleaning up all her mess, she’s a blast and a very lovable dog. When she's in a playful mood, she can get a bit wild, but she is a pup. But she's also very loving and loves to let you pet her belly. So I think it was a great choice rather than buying an expensive dog for whatever reason. This dog was free and very deserving of a loving home. Which we will happily provide! i know this isn’t a ‘Tech’ issue, but oh well, I wanted to show my dog. Well, I did take these pictures with my HTC Touch smart phone and uploaded via Windows mobile Device Center in Vista. There, a bit of tech in there for you.

*Note: I’m testing Windows Live Writer to write this blog, and I want to test the Windows Photo Album feature. So I’ve included all images above inline as separate images, but am going to test the album below:

View Full Album

Google-backed tool detects Net filtering, blocking

2009-01-30T21:45:00.002-06:00

Technorati Tags: net neutrality,torrent,bittorrent,torrents,bittornado

WASHINGTON--Is your Internet provider interfering with your network traffic, and perhaps even running afoul of Net neutrality principles? Google and some like-minded folks believe they've come up with what amounts to an early warning system.

The idea behind the so-called Measurement Lab, or M-Lab, is that just about anyone interested in Internet regulation--including consumers, regulators, and content providers--could use more details about their network's performance. Google, the Democratic Party-affiliated New America Foundation, and the PlanetLab Consortium (a university-business consortium devoted to next-generation networks) announced M-Lab on Wednesday.

The launch's timing is probably no coincidence: M-Lab may become especially relevant if the Net neutrality wars between Google and broadband providers in Washington heat up again. If Democratic legislators get their way, the so-called stimulus package expected to become law will require federal regulators to define and enforce "open access" rules for certain broadband and wireless networks. The 2007 discovery that Comcast was throttling BitTorrent traffic showed that it can be difficult to determine when network providers are interfering.

M-Lab aims to bring more transparency to network activity by allowing researchers to deploy Internet measurement tools and share data. The platform launched Wednesday with three Google servers dedicated to the project, and within six months, Google will provide researchers with 36 servers in 12 locations around the globe. All the data collected will be made publicly available.

Sascha Meinrath, research director of the New America Foundation's Wireless Future Program, said his organization's role in M-Lab is to translate the data collected into meaningful and understandable information for policymakers. M-Lab founders and supporters told an audience here at the New America Foundation headquarters that more information would lead to better policymaking from anyone's perspective.

"I'm going to argue no matter what position you take on Net neutrality, you should be happy things like M-Lab are being built," said Ed Felten, a computer science and public affairs professor from Princeton and the director of the Center for Information Policy.

"If you believe the government should take more active steps to mandate Net neutrality...it will help you gather the evidence you need" to support such policies, he said. On the other hand, he said, more transparent networks would give Internet service providers true market incentive to behave in consumer-friendly ways.

Meinrath, however, said they do not intend to use M-Lab data for any kind of political agenda.

"The goal is not to be actively involved in using that ammunition," he said. "It's just creating results."

For now, M-Lab is running three diagnostic tools for consumers: one to determine whether BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled, one to diagnose problems that affect last-mile broadband networks, and one to diagnose problems limiting speeds.

Vint Cerf, Google's chief Internet evangelist, said that while such information may be hard for some consumers to understand, it would help them explain their Internet problems to people with more expertise.

"This data could be made available to someone who is trying to help you," he said, "but instead of getting anecdotal information like, 'Gee, this is slow,' you could actually send this data."

"You'd have some raw data coming from the customer's point of view," he continued. "Maybe it will allow people to start businesses like 'Call a Geek' to figure out what's wrong with their Internet connection."

CNET's Declan McCullagh contributed to this report. The original article, Google-backed tool detects Net filtering, blocking was published on CNET News.com.

source:

Obama, Please Stop Outsourcing in the US!!!

2009-01-27T16:09:00.002-06:00

Dear Mr. President Obama, I definitely appreciate all you’re currently doing, and the plans you’ve laid out for the future. The American people are glad we have someone in office with some initiative to make things better and not to jus line his/her pockets. I can say I agree with you on everything, except abortions. That said, here is my plea to you: “Please put a stop to Outsourcing!”. I remember seeing a post online about your plans to give companies who keep jobs in the United States a tax break. I also recently read that, that particular portion of your plan has been dropped! Excuse me, but WTF?!? That would have really helped us. I have always heard about outsourcing, and how it has torn millions of families apart, but it has never affected me directly. Until now! I work from home as an IT Security Admin. I have FINALLY gotten the job I’ve always wanted, working from home, doing a job that you directly know is helping people. We give doctors, nurses, and all other types of health care professionals up to Directors, access to do their jobs. And we were just notified that our positions will be being outsourced to India in March. Not only that, but we are having to train the guys in India on what we do. Training our replacements, Yes!

All of the people on my current team have our feelers out and resume’s on Monster and the likes. We only stay now for the money and the hopes that maybe they will find another position within the company for us. Of course, I highly doubt it will be a work for home position that pays as well as we currently get paid, but it’s work! And uncertain if that will even happen, which from what we hear, its likely that it wont.

So now, here we are, among the millions of other Americans with no job security and will likely be unemployed soon. So we are looking to you, Mr. Obama, to put an end to this Bullshit! Excuse my language, but you have to understand my frustration with what is happening in our country today. I have 2 little girls and a wife to take care of, and now it’s uncertain if I will be able to put food on our table. I do understand that companies are also affected by this country’s current economy, hence the reason they are outsourcing to other countries, Primarily India. Which is where our jobs are going.

I guess the recent scams coming out of outsourcing companies in India doesn’t outweigh the financial gains of sending our jobs there for less money than they pay us. If you haven’t heard of these scams, please check this link, and this link. What they were doing is lying about how many employees they actually had handling your outsourced jobs. This one claimed to have 3,000 more employees than it actually had. If you consider the amount of ‘tasks’ that one person can get done in an 8 hour day, times 3,000 fake people, they are actually losing money even at the cheap prince of labor in India.

I wanted to end this blog with some type of solution for this problem, but I’m not the president. I can’t make this decision, or even have the knowledge of politics and government spending to advise how this can be rectified. I’m a ‘Computer Guy”. I really liked the idea of giving the companies who keep jobs in the US tax breaks, but it also disappoints me that we would have to go to those measures for companies to keep work in the US. What if we started outsourcing Corporate Executives? How would they like it. They’re the ones making Millions of dollars a year for work that barely constitutes a fraction of that amount of money for the work they do. I personally believe outsourcing should be outlawed to a certain extent. If American companies don’t want to willingly keep jobs in America, then they should be Forced to do so!

With the current economy, this is YOUR JOB now Mr. Obama, and should hold your Primary Focus! Of course there are a lot of important issues that need to be dealt with after Bush screwed us over so bad, (abortion not being one, but I don’t mean to push my views when I’m asking for help for the American Public), and I know that you have your hands full cleaning up Bush’ mess, But I beg you, Please do something about this! How can we have faith in America when companies in America are allowed to give our jobs, money, LIVING, away to FOREIGN countries! Sending foreign countries money for abortions and also sending them our jobs, and we should have faith? My faith in God is without question, but this country isn’t my God. I cant seem to keep faith in a country that abandons it’s people in such a manner. I guess I’m coming off a bit harsh, because I am Pissed, again, this is now directly affecting me and my family, but I also know that I’m not the only one going through this right now. It makes me sick to my stomach thinking about not being able to feed my kids. All to save a few dollars that will end up on some corporate pricks pocket for him to buy his kid a new BMW. Mr. President Obama, please don’t let the American people down as our last president did! I don’t think we can handle too much more… Thanks for your time, and we are behind you. We know you can do it! We’re just hoping that you do.

Sincerely,

Robert Roskey

*Note: I have sent this to the White House email and waiting for a response. Ill hold my breath…

Which Virtualization Choice is Right for You?

2009-01-21T13:13:00.006-06:00

Today, there are so many choices when it comes to a company or an individual wanting to cut costs by virtualization of hardware and/or software. But, which is Right for You? Wikipedia describes Virtualization as:

“In computing, virtualization is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources:

Platform virtualization, which separates an operating system from the underlying platform resources[citation needed]

Full virtualization

Hardware-assisted virtualization

Partial virtualization

Paravirtualization

Operating system-level virtualization

Hosted environment[citation needed] (e.g. User-mode Linux)

Resource virtualization, the virtualization of specific system resources, such as storage volumes, name spaces, and network resources

Encapsulation, the hiding of resource complexity by the creation of a simplified interface

Virtual memory, which allows uniform, contiguous addressing of physically separate and non-contiguous memory and disk areas

Storage virtualization, the process of completely abstracting logical storage from physical storage

RAID - redundant array of independent disks

Disk partitioning, is the splitting of a single resource (usually large), such as disk space or network bandwidth, into a number of smaller, more easily utilized resources of the same type

Logical volume management, which combines many disks into one large pool and then divides it into logical disks.

Network virtualization, creation of a virtualized network addressing space within or across network subnets

Channel bonding, the use multiple links combined to work as though they offered a single, higher-bandwidth link

Computer clusters and grid computing, the combination of multiple discrete computers into larger metacomputers

Application virtualization, the hosting of individual applications on alien hardware/software

Portable application

Cross-platform virtualization

Emulation or simulation

Virtualization Development, further work in this area

Desktop virtualization, the remote manipulation of a computer desktop”

There are many factors that will play into your decision. I have had experience on both sides of the fence with Windows and Linux. I personally don’t use any type of Apple Macs, but have read many articles on virtualization on Mac. On the windows side I have used VMWare, which is one of the ones most people are familiar with. I haven't had any experience with Microsoft's Hyper Visor yet, but have used Microsoft’s desktop virtualization software, Virtual PC 2004 & 2007. This is a description of MS Virtual PC from Wikipedia:

“Microsoft Virtual PC is a virtualization suite for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and an emulation suite for Mac OS X on PowerPC-based systems.”

So this is a nice offering by Microsoft allowing to be ran on OS X. The software itself runs very smooth but lacks some features that VMWare’s newest version, VMWare Workstation 5. There is also a server version. VMWare is likely the most popular virtualization software and most widely used. A lot of companies are using Citrix based virtualization technologies. Citrix Systems, Inc. also said that its Citrix XenDesktop desktop virtualization software will be available in mid-May. I personally work from home doing IT Security Administration, and the company I work for uses Citrix technologies. First thing I do when I power my work pc on, is remote into a Virtual PC using Citrix Metaframe. Citrix is very nice being that it seems to be mainly web-based. Well, I did have to install a client, but what I mean is anytime I need to remote into this Virtual Machine, I go thru our intranet and uses links to open the whole virtual OS, or specific virtualized applications that I use daily. One cool thing I noticed too, not that it matters, but even though the VM I run is on Xp, and I use the classic theme, when the virtualized applications I use load, they have the blue XP themed window border and titlebars. Looks weird when everything else is old school classic windows.

VMWare is also cross platform and I have personally tried in on Ubuntu Linux and it works as I expected from running it on Windows first. Also as theres some open source offerings, the most known of which is called VirtualBox. VirtualBox is also cross platform. From its websites Download section:

VirtualBox 2.1.0 for Windows hosts x86 | AMD64 (only on Windows x64!)

VirtualBox 2.1.0 for OS X hosts Intel Macs

VirtualBox 2.1.0 for Linux hosts

VirtualBox 2.1.0 for Solaris and OpenSolaris hosts x86 | AMD64

VirtualBox 2.1.0 Software Developer Kit (SDK) All platforms

VirtualBox older builds

I like VirtualBox myself, and run it on my laptop on Ubuntu Hardy Heron, but also feels that it lacks some of the features VMWare has.

There are a lot more virtualization technologies that I haven’t covered, but you can google virtualization software or technologies and get so much info you couldn’t handle it. I have to get back to work, leave any comments you might have. Hope this will help anyone deciding which Virtualization software is right for them!

Image courtesy of

Watch the Obama Inauguration Live!

2009-01-19T20:27:00.002-06:00

My Review of Windows 7 Beta build 7000

2009-01-18T01:51:00.005-06:00

Over the past week or so, Ive been running primarily on Windows 7 in a virtual machine via VMWare. The PC itself runs Vista, (Its work my work they gave me to work from home with), and its a beast. To me anyway, fastest I've ever had. Here's the Specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33 GHZ 2.33 GHZ

4GB of ram. Vistas Windows Experience index gave me a 3.9, but this is likely because the video card isn't great at all. And why should it be. All I use this PC for is to remote into a virtual machine in another state, and that's where I do all my work. So I'm not using hardly any of this PC's resources. So being that its my work PC, I do all my personal stuff in an XP Virtual Machine via VMWare.

Well I used to anyway. Ive recently been doing everything in Windows 7 beta build 7000. I gave it 20 GB of space, let it use 2 cores, and gave it 2 GB of ram. I have to say. I think Microsoft got it right this time! I was one of the ones who was VERY hesitant to go to vista. I probably still wouldn't have, if it weren't for this work PC getting me used to, and making me start liking, Vista. Yes, I said it. I like Vista. And no Im not a windows fan boy at all, I take no sides. I prefer Ubuntu over windows personally. I have another Dell desktop that runs Vista, similar specs to my work pc, never had any problems. Another Compaq desktop runs Xp, and of course, no probs. My Dell latitude laptop runs Ubuntu hardy heron, and I love it best of all. I'm gearing up to put Ubuntu on my kids desktop so they can get used to a different environment than windows. They've been using computers since 3 years and 7 years old. So now, at 7 and 11, they are very fluent with computers. They like my laptop best and always like to show off the desktop effects, like the Compiz Cube, rain drops on the desktop, wobbly windows, etc... But I have to say, this Windows is might end up on their computers if things keep going well.

One thing that kinda disappointed me, and this is because I have Windows 7 installed in a virtual machine, but I don't get the full experience of the graphics. I think Windows Aero is disabled for me. But I know the Desktop preview function, where you mouse over the last button/area of the taskbar and it should hide all windows but leave the outline, doesn't work for me. If I click that button, I get 2 options, Show Desktop, and Preview Desktop. But the Preview Desktop is Disabled, (Grayed out), but has a check next to it. Also likely due to the graphics issue, and why I think Aero is disabled because of it, is Google Chromes ... chrome, is light blue, like on XP. It should be semi-transparent unless maximized, like on Vista.

But cosmetics aside, I really like the OS. I don't think things are laid out in a way that it will be hard for users to adjust at all. Once people get over the whole 'Vista is bad" curse, and realize that all the problems that plauged Vista are now resolved, things will be ok. I say this because windows 7 is just an extension of Vista. I personally think Vista is solid as a rock now, check the malware reports and see how much more secure it is than past version of windows, INCLUDING XP!) But I also think, windows 7 should either just be a service pack for vista, or be called Vista².

I read a very interesting article by Tim Sneath from Microsoft with alot of info, tips, and tricks for Windows 7. Its definitely worth a read if you're giving Windows 7 a test drive. I especially like the Black Box Recorder, The program is called psr.exe; you can also search for it from Control Panel under “Record steps to reproduce a problem”. Here is what he wrote about this one:

"Every developer wishes there was a way that an end-users could quickly and simply record a repro for the problem that they’re running into that is unique to their machine. Windows 7 comes to the rescue! Part of the in-built diagnostic tools that we use internally to send feedback on the product, the Problem Steps Recorder provides a simple screen capture tool that enables you to record a series of actions. Once you hit “record”, it tracks your mouse and keyboard and captures screenshots with any comments you choose to associate alongside them. Once you stop recording, it saves the whole thing to a ZIP file, containing an HTML-based “slide show” of the steps. It’s a really neat little tool and I can’t wait for it to become ubiquitous on every desktop!"

As a former technical Support representative, I can say this will be a god send once it becomes mainstream. I also like the Shift+Click an icon of a running program to open another instance of it. And also the keyboard commands listed in his article. Saves a lot of time when not thinking and just navigating the OS.

So in conclusion I would say, Good Job Microsoft. So Far... Don't screw it up this time, your on the right track and, Yes I was one of the ones who didn't recognize the fish on the desktop was a 'Betta" fish until recently, lol. Nice touch. Anyone else trying out Windows 7? What do you think?

Google Chrome for Linux/Mac sooner than we thought? - & - Extension Support coming!

2009-01-12T01:07:00.004-06:00

Showing signs that it's working to meet requests for new developments to its Chrome browser, Google on Friday said it hopes to release versions for Mac OS X and Linux by the first half of the year, and it released a new version Wednesday that paves the way for the most requested feature: extensions.

Google has high hopes for Chrome--in particular, the Internet giant wants better performance, so browsing the Web is faster and Web-based applications are more powerful. Now Google is filling in some missing pieces Chrome needs in order to attain wider usage.

Brian Rakowski, Chrome's product manager, said the company wants to release Chrome for Mac and Linux before the first half of 2009 is up.

"That's what we've been hoping for," he said in an interview Friday. "Those two efforts proceeding in parallel. They're at the same level of progress."

The Mac and Linux versions are up to the level of a basic "test shell" that can show Web pages. But a test shell is pretty raw.

"That team now is able to render most Web pages pretty well. But in terms of the user experience, it's very basic," Rakowski said of the Mac version. "We have not spent any time building out features. We're still iterating on making it stable and getting the architecture right."

In an unscientific CNET News survey from November, a Mac version was the second most common barrier to getting people to switch to Chrome, trailing only faster performance. Eager beavers can monitor Google's Chrome for Mac progress and install the Mac test shell.

Extensions en route
Another major missing piece of Chrome is a framework to handle extensions, optional features that can be downloaded and plugged in to customize the browser. Extensions were one of the early advantages that helped Firefox blossom, it's the top-requested feature for Chrome, and it ranked third in the CNET survey of Chrome barriers.

But a new cutting-edge version of Chrome, 2.0.156.1, gets support for some "Greasemonkey" scripts to customize the browser, a move that lays the groundwork for extensions, Rakowski said.

"We have user script support. That's a baby step," he said. As Chrome develops, Google will "expose more capabilities, then expose containers where can you have your own toolbar-like thing. You'll see it evolve over time."

Google promised an extensions framework when Chrome launched, and more recently, Google outlined its Chrome extensions vision.

Counting Chrome
Google released Chrome 1.0 in December, just three months after the software publicly debuted, and the company is working hard to maintain a fast development pace. Wednesday's version, though not for the general public, is the first to sport the version 2 number.

Also updated with the new version is Google's Chrome release structure.

Before, Google let people subscribe to two Chrome update channels: beta and developer. The first was for relatively well-tested versions; the second for programmers, Web developers, and people with more curiosity and a higher bug threshold.

Now there are three Chrome channels: stable, beta, and developer preview.

Most folks will just use the stable version, which Google expects to update roughly once a quarter, Rakowski said. "The beta channel is now what the developer channel used to be," he added, with newer features but still a reasonable amount of testing. Newest is the developer preview channel, where code will be frequently updated and much more raw, and where Google expects some features to fail and be withdrawn.

Google expects to issue new developer preview versions roughly every couple weeks and new beta releases roughly monthly, Rakowski said.

Major new features
Version 2.0.156.1 includes many new features besides Greasemonkey support. Among them:

• Autocomplete, so Chrome can remember what you've typed into Web forms and enter them again. "A lot of people asked for that. It turns out it's more complicated than it seems on the surface," Rakowski said.

• Full-page zoom, so that using Ctrl+ and Ctrl- to increase or decrease elements on a Web page works better. Before, only text grew or shrank, but now other elements do, too.

• Browser profiles, so you can set up a browser configuration with particular settings such as bookmarks and cookies.

• The ability to import bookmarks from the Google Bookmarks site.

• Autoscroll, so clicking a mouse's middle button, then moving the mouse, lets you slide around larger pages. This is handy for panning around large images without constantly zooming in and out.

• Faster Safe Browsing, a feature to issue warnings about sites that may conduct phishing attacks or other malicious behavior.

• Under the hood, the update gets a new version of the open-source WebKit engine for converting a Web page's descriptive HTML and CSS code into the page displayed on a computer. Chrome's current stable release uses the same WebKit version as is used in Apple's Safari 3.1, but the new Chrome developer preview uses WebKit 528.8, which is faster and supports features such as CSS canvas drawing for 2D shapes such as lines on maps or custom-generated charts.

• An update of Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine from version 0.3.9.3 to 0.4.6.0. JavaScript is used for more elaborate Web pages, and the new version is faster, Rakowski said.

Missing from the new version is support for automatic discovery of Web site subscriptions through RSS and Atom "feed" technology. Google has mapped out feed support; the company plans to add it in the version 2 time frame, Rakowski said.

source: Stephen Shankland from cnet news

The Only Thing I Hate about Christmas

2008-12-25T17:46:00.004-06:00

The only thing I hate about Christmas, is the phone calls from local neighbors... "Could you come help me setup my wireless on my new laptop?". Or "Can you program ___, can you sync ___, etc....". I'm trying to spend time with my family and I've got 4 phone calls for this reason alone today. I did the first, setting up the neighbors wifi, (so I can use it if need be, its 802.11G, reaches my apartment fine :) but the rest.. will just have to wait.

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, especially the looks on my 2 girls faces when they open the gifts and get just what they wanted. Then comes deciding what to play with. Of course next comes the family Christmas Afternoon Dinner/Lunch. And this is one of the main reasons Thanksgiving and Christmas are my favorite holidays. I love eating! On thanksgiving, I usually pull a 'Stove Top', like the old stove top stuffing commercials, where the boys would make calls and plan to go to each others houses to eat. I go to all my friends houses and eat up their food :). Then the food we make, I can save to eat over the next few days. Petty? maybe, but Oh well, everyone makes different foods, and I like variety.

But I mean, c'mon. Its Christmas, like I really want to come to your house and help you install iTunes for your new iPod. Then I have to explain how to get music.. Then comes the question of how to burn it.. etc, etc, etc... I just get tired of 'Helping people out', but it is the Christmas season, it's better to give than receive. I swear I feel like making some videos like the Video Professor, on how to use the computer, and selling them, lol. Whats your takes on this subjects?

Santa must be real, he's on Google Earth

2008-12-23T20:42:00.004-06:00

As it has for the past four years, Google will be mapping Santa Claus' trek from the icy North Pole to rooftops around the globe on Christmas Eve. But this year, good girls and boys can track their gifts via mobile phones and Twitter, too.

Starting at 3 a.m. PST on Wednesday, a Google Map with Santa's current location will be displayed on the NORAD Santa Web site, operated by Google and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Santa fans can also track his movements in 3D in Google Earth by downloading a special NORAD Tracks Santa KML. iGoogle users can add a NORAD Tracks Santa gadget to their iGoogle page.

Google will be displaying high-resolution "Santa Cam" video of the gift-laden airborne sleigh. For locations without video, photos from Panoramio will be displayed in Google Maps.

And for the first time, people can track Santa's journey on mobile phones with Google Maps for Mobile and follow him on Twitter by adding "@noradsanta."

You can read the history of Google's Santa tracking efforts on the Official Google Blog.

Google became NORAD's official Santa Tracking technology partner last year. NORAD has been tracking Santa for about 50 years

- Source: Elinor Mills @ http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10128642-2.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

VideoLan - VLC Says Merry Christmas

2008-12-23T01:06:00.011-06:00

Has anyone else noticed when running VLC now, the icon in the upper left hand corner, normally the little orange cone, now has a Santa Hat on it! As well as the icon in the windows taskbar, and systray icons. The file association icons, in windows explorer, are still the same as always, just the cone. Heres a couple Screen Shots...

If it matters Im running the newest release, VLC media player 0.9.8a, on Windows Vista. Ive been running VLC for years ever since I found out, A) it could play movies straight from the .bin file, B) it can stream video across a lan, and C) you dont need to install codecs, it just.. works! And its Fully Skinnable. Its just the best all around media player. Period. Did I mention its the best? And you should download it? at www.videolan.org ? O, Ok...

Chrome currently beating IE8 Beta in market share

2008-12-16T23:46:00.004-06:00

I knew it would happen... Chrome would out do IE8. I've been using off and on since its release. I still keep Firefox as my default, but find myself using Chrome alot more often. Its alot faster than IE8 and Firefox for me anyway. It does have its quirks, and lacks support for addons, (extensions), but Im sure these will be worked out soon, as Chrome recently lost its Beta title. I think this is so it can be pre-installed and bundled on new pc's. giving firefox and IE runs for their Money. Firefox is currently default browser in Ubuntu Linux.

Whats your thoughts?

My Experience with "Intrepid Ibex" Ubuntu 8.10

2008-12-16T20:53:00.005-06:00

"Intrepid Ibex" is the code name of Ubuntu 8.10, which was released on October 30th 2008.

A friend of mine just bought a brand new dell latitude laptop from his local pawn shop. He brought it to me to "Hook it up". It came with XP and there was so much BS installed, from useless programs, programs he wouldn't even need, and one scan thru spybot, a-squared, and ad-aware showed more malware then I've ever seen.

(Screenshot isnt of his desktop, just found on the web)

So I asked him how familiar he was with windows, and had he ever tried Linux. He said he was used to winXP, but had heard of Ubuntu. After a long discussion of me persuading him the best route to go with would be Ubuntu, he said to go ahead and install it and show him the basics. So I did. Install went smooth and he was very impressed with the speed of it, over how fast it was when he first got it with XP and all the BS on it. I showed him the basics, and how to access all his externals, which btw worked fine after all updates. He had 2 external HDD's, and an external DVD burner. All worked fine.

Of course after showing him the basics and how to google for apps he needs, checking ubuntu forums, and using the sudo apt-get command, of course I had to show off the Compiz desktop effects.

Once I showed him all the cool stuff, water drops on the desktop, and the 3D Desktop cube and how to rotate with mouse and keyboard... let's just say he was amazed.

So mine, and my friends experience with this new version of Ubuntu was a very good one!

I personally use gutsy on my laptop, just haven't gotten around to updating, but will soon.

He called me the next night with some questions, but says he loves it way better than windows and its running faster than any pc he's ever had!

Apple kills iPhone app, claiming API violation

2008-12-15T22:01:00.003-06:00

Landon Fuller's Peeps application was rejected from the App Store for supposedly breaking rules that Google was allowed to violate.

(Credit: Plausible Labs)

Apple has rejected an iPhone application that supposedly uses off-limits technology just like Google's mobile application--only the developer swears it's not true.

Landon Fuller, who developed a photo contact management system called Peeps, said on his blog that Apple had rejected Peeps from the App Store because, "Peeps cannot be posted to the App Store due to the usage of a non-public API. Usage of non-public APIs, as outlined in the iPhone SDK Agreement section 3.3.1, is prohibited." The thing is, Fuller insists that Peeps does not use any programming tools but the public ones Apple exposes to developers as part of the iPhone SDK, saying "the last thing I would do is deliver time-bomb code to a paying customer." (Thanks to Daring Fireball for the link.)

APIs are tools that applications use to exploit parts of a computer's operating system. Operating system developers usually label some proportion of the various APIs in the OS as "public," meaning they'll support the use of those APIs well into the future to ensure applications will not break with future OS updates.

There are usually lots of other APIs lying around that the OS vendor doesn't make public, but that developers can see if they poke around a little bit. Google used such an API to trigger a voice prompt from the iPhone's proximity sensor in its Google Mobile application, the company admitted was against the rules.

Fuller seems to believe this is all just a misunderstanding, since his application looks an awful lot like Apple's Cover Flow feature but doesn't actually use the same implementation Apple does to display album covers in iTunes. Maybe he just needs a bigger market cap: Google Mobile is still available on the App Store, and a Google representative said he had no updates on whether Apple had ordered any changes to Google Mobile or if Google planned to make any changes on its own. An Apple representative did not return a call seeking comment, but Apple representatives have never returned any calls seeking comment about the App Store approval process.

Sometimes it really does seem that getting your iPhone application approved or rejected for the App Store comes down to whether or not you draw Inspector No. 1 or Inspector No. 2 that day.

-Source: Tom Krazit @ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10123619-37.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

Firefox Tops List of 12 Most Vulnerable Apps

2008-12-15T21:43:00.005-06:00

Mozilla’s flagship Firefox browser has earned the dubious title of the most vulnerable software program running on the Windows platform.

According to application whitelisting vendor Bit9, Firefox topped the list of 12 widely deployed desktop applications that suffered through critical security vulnerabilities in 2008. These flaws exposed millions of Windows users to remote code execution attacks.

The other applications on the list are all well-known and range from browsers to media players, to VOIP chat and anti-virus software programs. Here’s Bit9’s dirty dozen:

Mozilla Firefox: In 2008, Mozilla patched 10 vulnerabilities that could be used by remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via buffer overflow, malformed URI links, documents, JavaScript and third party tools.
Adobe Flash and Adobe Acrobat: Bit9 listed 14 flaws patched this year that exposed desktops of arbitrary remote code execution via buffer overflow,“input validation issues” and malformed parameters.
EMC VMware Player,Workstation and other products: A total of 10 bugs introduced risks ranging from privilege escalation via directory traversal, ActiveX buffer overflows leading to arbitrary code execution and denial of service.
Sun Java JDK and JRE, Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE): Inability to prevent execution of applets on older JRE release could allow remote attackers to exploit vulnerabilities of these older releases. Buffer overflows allowing creation, deletion and execution of arbitrary files via untrusted applications. 10 patched vulnerabilities listed.
Apple QuickTime, Safari and iTunes: In QuickTime, the list includes nine vulnerabilities that allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via buffer overflow, or cause a denial of service (heap corruption and application crash) involving malformed media files, media links and third party codecs. The Safari for Windows browser was haunted by three flaws that could be lead to arbitrary code execution and denial of service involving JavaScript arrays that trigger memory corruption. Apple’s iTunes software was susceptible to a remote improper update verification that allowed man-in-the-middle attacks to execute arbitrary code via a Trojan horse update.
Symantec Norton products (all flavors 2006 to 2008): Stack-based buffer overflow in the AutoFix Support Tool ActiveX exposed Windows users to arbitrary code execution.
Trend Micro OfficeScan: A total of four stack-based buffer overflows that opened doors for remote attackers to execute arbitrary code.
Citrix Products: Privilege escalation in DNE via specially crafted interface requests affects Cisco VPN Client, Blue Coat WinProxy, SafeNet SoftRemote and HighAssurance Remote. Search path vulnerability, and buffer overflow lead to arbitrary code execution.
Aurigma Image Uploader, Lycos FileUploader: Remote attackers can perform remote code execution via long extended image information.
Skype: Improper check of dangerous extensions allows user-assisted remote attackers to bypass warning dialogs.Cross-zone scripting vulnerability allows remote attackers to inject script via Internet Explorer web control.
Yahoo Assistant: Remote attackers can execute arbitrary code via memory corruption.
Microsoft Windows Live (MSN) Messenger: Remote attackers are allowed to control the Messenger application, “change state,” obtain contact information and establish audio or video connections without notification.

See Bit9’s full report (.pdf) for information on how the list was put together, including criteria for inclusion.

* Image source: Channy Yun’s Flickr photostream (Creative Commons 2.0)

Source : Ryan Naraine, Dancho Danchev & Adam O'Donnell @ http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2304

Microsoft Releases its First iPhone App

2008-12-14T16:45:00.003-06:00

Is it possible some at Microsoft find the iPhone a more attractive platform than the software giant's own Windows Mobile?

Microsoft's Seadragon on Apple's iPhone.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Engineers in the company's Live Labs have released the company's first application for Apple's popular smartphone--even before making it available on Microsoft's own mobile platform. Seadragon Mobile, which was added to Apple's App Store on Saturday, is a free image-browsing app that allows users to quickly "deep zoom" images while online and is intended to demonstrate what is possible with a mobile platform.

Seadragon is the backbone for Microsoft's Photosynth, which allows users to take a grouping of photographs and stitch them together into a faux 3D environment.

Other iPhone apps are reportedly in development in Redmond; Microsoft's Tellme unit was expected to release the company's first iPhone app in the form of a voice-activated search for a variety of phones, including iPhone and BlackBerry. A Microsoft representative told my colleague Ina Fried in September that a public version of that program wouldlikely be released in a few months.

So where's the Windows Mobile version of Seadragon?

"The iPhone is the most widely distributed phone with a (graphics processing unit)," Alex Daley, group product manager for Microsoft Live Labs, told TechFlash. "Most phones out today don't have accelerated graphics in them. The iPhone does and so it enabled us to do something that has been previously difficult to do."

Source: Steven Musil @ news.cnet.com

Ballmer to talk Windows 7, not ZunePhone, at CES

2008-12-14T02:23:00.008-06:00

Microsoft will have a

bunch of stuff to show at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but a rumored ZunePhone won't be one of them, according to sources familiar with the company's plans.Instead, much of CEO Steve Ballmer's focus will be on talking about Windows 7 from a consumer perspective

. Windows will be introducing some really nice new effects and additions for Windows 7, one I like is Aero Snap, where moving a window to the farthest of one side wil make the window stick to that side of the screen and take up about half the screen. Basically making the desktop alot more efficient. Also a really nice new addition is a new feature called

Aero Shake.

Aero Shake seems to be another feature which has some quite interested. By gently shaking one window, it'll minimise the rest of the surrounding windows, giving you a bit of fresh thinking space to... well, think. Less clutter = better thinking. For a full Photo gallery of Windows 7 that shows off the features I mentioned and many more, Click Here. There doing lot with the desktop, and the Transparent effect while moving the windows, all other windows go transparent and you only see the outline, helps when organizing windows.

Microsoft is pushing to have Windows 7 done in time for the holiday 2009 shopping season, so that means this CES is Ballmer's best stage to tout its benefits. While the desktop operating system will be front and center, sources say to expect Ballmer to talk about how Windows is moving beyond the PC and into a world of PC, Web, and phone, a refrain we also heard a lot from Ray Ozzie at November's Professional Developers Conference, where the world also got its first good look at Windows 7.

On the phone front, Microsoft may not have a ZunePhone, but it is going ahead with several other strategies--pushing phone makers to develop phones based on Windows Mobile, developing Windows Live services for phones running a variety of operating systems as well as a number of new "premium mobile services" based on its Danger acquisition.

The company has also talked about extending its Zune service beyond the company's own dedicated player and mentioned the phone as a logical place to access the service. We may hear more about timing of this at CES, I'm told. In an October interview with CIO UK, Ballmer mentioned the possibility of accessing the Zune service on Windows Mobile phones.

The Xbox will certainly get its due as well during Ballmer's keynote speech and, as is typically the case, expect Microsoft to announce some new partnerships at the show. A funny video and celebrity guest are usually safe bets as well.

-source: Ina Fried @ news.cnet.com

Hackers Going Crazy With IE Zero Day Attacks

2008-12-14T01:56:00.003-06:00

IE is under attack again from yet another exploit in IE, that was dicovered a few days after December's Patch tuesday. Microsoft's investigation so far has revealed attacks on the following IE versions:

Windows Internet Explorer 7 on supported editions of Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, and Windows Server 2008.In addition, these IE versions are potentially vulnerable: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 on all supported versions of Microsoft Windows.

This exploit drives home -- yet again -- how vulnerable an otherwise strong Internet security policy can be to a weak browser, Paul Judge, CTO and cofounder of Purewire, told TechNewsWorld.There's much to be appreciated about Web 2.0, he said, but many of these applications can also serve as vectors for malware.

"Browsers have become the most vulnerable link in the Internet security landscape," he noted. Indeed, it is little wonder that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) developed and released Chrome, Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, told TechNewsWorld. "Google is dependent on having consumers use a safe browser.

"Microsoft has not yet developed a patch. Right now, security firms are offering piecemeal suggestions to protect against the vulnerability. Microsoft is suggesting users unregister oledb32.dll, but even this will not necessarily block the vulnerability.

Source: TechNewsWorld.com

Web App Promises iPhoners a Taste of Cut-and-Paste

2008-12-12T23:05:00.003-06:00

'For months, it's seemed like the impossible dream: When, oh when, will the iPhone get a real cut-and-paste function? An outfit called "Pastebud" claims it will make cut-and-paste possible for iPhone Friday, though aside from a YouTube clip demonstrating the feature, details remain hazy.'

Source

Seems well being that alot of ppl have been requesting this. I saw a demo on youtube, and looks ok. But theres some menus involved and the thumb scrolling to hilight the text didnt seem flawless. But i prefer my windows mobile 6.1, just hilight, copy, paste :)

Whats your thoughts?

YouTube lets you turn videos into greeting card

2008-12-12T22:53:00.001-06:00

For the second year, YouTube on Friday unveiled a holiday feature that lets users create hosted video cards to send to friends and family. Users can select this option from any YouTube video, or from a special page that houses selected community videos and links to a user's own clips.

There's also an option to make a more personalized greeting straight from a connected Webcam. For now, only one video can be attached to a given greeting card.

When users are finished picking a video for use in a greeting card, they can choose from a handful of themes that house the video player, then add up to 230 characters of text and send the complete card to up to 25 e-mail recipients.

According to YouTube's company blog, more than a million of these greetings were sent out last year, before the feature disappeared in January.

Turn any YouTube video into a greeting card for the holidays.

Source

Pink slips at Yahoo

2008-12-12T21:59:00.001-06:00

"The mood wasn't so joyous over at Yahoo, which began issuing pink slips to the majority of the employees affected by its previously announced 10 percent job cut. Most of the 1,520 layoffs affect employees at Yahoo's U.S.-based locations and come from a number of areas within the company, Yahoo said."

The above source is here

I think they shouldve sold when M$ offered them the $33 a share. Now I hope they go for a search only deal with MS, but MS isnt going to give them whatthey want, but their shareholders will force them to agree. Whats your take?

EFi-X USA to sell Mac OS X-capable PCs

2008-12-12T21:52:00.001-06:00

Do you really think after what Apple has put Psystar through, they will allow another company to do the same thing? I highly doubt it. Expect more court battles in the near future! Whats your take on it?

Google Chrome Comes out of Beta

2008-12-11T23:57:00.000-06:00

Today Google anounced that their web browser, Google Chrome, is out of beta. I personally like the browser alot, and have noticed that for me, it has been faster than FF or IE. FF is still my default, but find myself using chrome alot more these days. Blogging in it now. Still, Im not sure I agree with it coming out of beta this early, and Gmail and other more popular Google Services still remain in beta. I think they're only doing this so that Chrome can be bundled for pc makers. Whats your take on it?