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February 29, 2008
Internet speech the cost
I have championed the cause of internet speech many times on this site and have argued that it should be protected and encouraged. Yesterday we found out that said speech has its price, this story:
Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt, who is head of the British Army, said that the Prince's conduct on operations had been "exemplary" and that he is a "credit to the nation".The deployment had been cloaked in secrecy under a news blackout deal agreed across the UK media to prevent details reaching the Taliban and endangering Prince Harry and his comrades.
But the arrangement broke down today after news was leaked out on the US website the Drudge Report. (emphasis mine)
Lead to this:
ARMY Chiefs have decided to pull Prince Harry out of Afghanistan, The Sun can reveal.The Ministry of Defence confirmed that the 23-year-old officer's war had come to an end in a statement late this morning.
The first story led to the 2nd. The same free speech that allows us to say what we want and express what we feel also can reveal military secrets and or personal info that we might not want out there.
That doesn't mean that internet speech is bad, it just means like everything in life it costs something.
Update: Sammizdata.net elaborates on the issue:
I am all for the media and new media reporting the news and in particular news that the powers-that-be might be discomforted by. However reporting a wartime operation detail likely to increase the chance particular group of serving soldiers will attacked by the enemy (namely revealing the presence of a political 'high value target' in the war zone) fall way outside acceptable behaviour.
Posted by Peter at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)
February 28, 2008
Today's words of wisdom: cleaning house
Now for today's words of wisdom:
An old computer is like a small house, it needs to be cleaned often to keep it from getting cluttered
This means run disk cleanups etc regularly if you have a system with less that 500 mb of ram and regular defrags.
Posted by Peter at 01:57 PM
No Comment
Just for the record in case any of you are having comment issues, we have been having some issues with comments and trackbacks. Since backtracking comments is frankly a bit of a pain we will be disabling comments as a default until the issue is resolved.
On the bright side this means that I have had very little comment and trackback spam to clean up. Come to think of it that a pretty good incentive to leave them off.
Posted by Peter at 01:09 PM
February 27, 2008
Here comes the next one
Back in the 90's it was AOL then it was Microsoft (and to a degree still is) Microsoft, now Google is getting its paws into everything:
Viewed through the lens of its interest in mobile advertising and phones, not to mention its participation in the FCC's recent spectrum auction, Google's previous investments in "dark fiber" -- unlit fiber optic cable -- have fueled speculation that the company aspires to become a network operator like AT&T (NYSE: T) or Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA).But Google's network acquisitions manager Francois Sterin, in a blog post, denies any such ambition. "If you're wondering whether we're going into the undersea cable business, the answer is no," he wrote. "We're not competing with telecom providers, but the volume of data we need to move around the world has grown to the point where in some cases we've exceeded the ability traditional players can offer. Our partnership with these companies is just another step in ensuring that we're delivering the best possible experience to people around the world."
Kevin Williamson at media blog said it best:
Google is going to make Microsoft's alleged monopoly look like the board game before they're through:
I think I'd have used quotes around the "alleged" myself.
Posted by Peter at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2008
Yet Another reason to be careful on myspace
Well here comes more trouble for My Space users:
"Like any Web 2.0 website where users control the content on profile pages, MySpace attempts to control the links on its site," he said. "In this particular case, the attacker is redirecting visitors to a MySpace.com phishing page that looks very much like MySpace.com."The danger here, he noted, is that visitors trust the links, but in this case, they're redirected to a page that contains malicious content. "That's one of the huge opportunities on Web 2.0 sites -- exploiting user trust," he said.
Careful careful careful, you cant do better than being careful.
Posted by Peter at 06:43 PM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2008
A matter of presepective
I've mentioned Mighty Subs a few times in the past. I've mentioned that they are nice people and their subs are the size of Cuba, but alas I gave no proof....until now:
This is a computer keyboard this is a Large Mighty Sub. Any questions?
Posted by Peter at 04:21 PM | Comments (1)
February 24, 2008
...but to some its just fine
During the Civil War (and I'm at a loss to find the reference but I remember reading it.) an officer was asked if his troops could charge a dangerous position. The officer answered that his men were just the men to do it; the were green and didn't know any better. This came to mind after I talked to a friend of mine in Florida.
His brother in law had bought him is first computer a few weeks ago and he was loving it. He went on about how it was easy to use and did a great job. When I asked him about issues using windows Vista his answer was pretty much: "what issues? It runs fine."
Considering how many complaints I've heard (and made) about Vista it surprised me at first until I thought about it a bit. Most of the complaints I've heard are from XP users who either expected better from Vista or don't like the new interface or features of the program.
To a person who has never used a PC before and is learning computers for the first time. Vista is no harder to learn than any other OS and is a respectable choice to do work on. The compatibility issues don't exist because they never had XP programs in the first place, the interface is what it is and the problems (such as power) are not to them Vista problems but computer problems.
There is a lot of fighting to preserve XP by people but Microsoft is waging a war of attrition. It is a strategy that is likely to win in the end.
Posted by Peter at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)
I guess that's what they mean by a power user
Last month I wrote about the 75 min time for the battery on my vista laptop when using the hi performance settings.
Today I was doing some regular surfing away from the plug and found my system shutting down with the battery at 3% after less than 20 min.
The worst part of it being that I was on the balanced setting.
Could be a bad battery but as Vista tends to annoy me I'm likely to place the blame there. And if a professional tech is still constantly annoyed by vista how does the avg person feel? Well that leads to another story and my next post...
Posted by Peter at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2008
And the good news just keeps coming
More great security news:
Researchers with Princeton University and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have found a flaw that renders disk encryption systems useless if an intruder has physical access to your computer -- say in the case of a stolen laptop or when a computer is left unattended on a desktop in sleep mode or while displaying a password prompt screen.The attack takes only a few minutes to conduct and uses the disk encryption key that's stored in the computer's RAM.
And if that is enough:
"People trust encryption to protect sensitive data when their computer is out of their immediate control," said EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen, a member of the research team. "But this new class of vulnerabilities shows it is not a sure thing. Whether your laptop is stolen, or you simply lose track of it for a few minutes at airport security, the information inside can still be read by a clever attacker."The researchers cracked several widely used disk encryption technologies, including Microsoft's BitLocker, Apple's FileVault, TrueCrypt, and dm-crypt. These "secure" disk encryption systems are supposed to protect sensitive information if a computer is stolen or otherwise accessed. However, in a paper and video published on the Internet today, the researchers show that data is vulnerable because encryption keys and passwords stored in a computer's temporary memory -- or RAM -- do not disappear immediately after losing power.
That just goes to show you that there is no substitute for keeping your hands on your pc.
Posted by Peter at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2008
Well this Ipod hack will keep the lawyers busy
Well the iPod/iTunes news today is big:
A notorious Norwegian hacker known as DVD Jon is preparing for another run-in with the music industry after he released software that lets iPod owners copy music and videos bought from iTunes and play it on other devices.The program allows people to drag and drop songs from iTunes into a folder on their desktop, which in turn copies the files to other devices such as mobile phones and games consoles via the web.
The question is the legality:
DoubleTwist, DVD Jon's company, maintains that its service is legal, but lawyers said that Apple would almost certainly seek to shut it down because the law now specifically targeted technologies which attempted to circumvent measures such as DRM.The hacker has previously enabled iPod owners to play music bought from websites other than iTunes.
The lawyers are going to have a lot of fun with this.
Posted by Peter at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2008
Truer words were never spoken
I agree.
Posted by Peter at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2008
Who says 180,000 people can't be wrong?
A Wikipedia update: You know you've just got to love it when free speech on the net trumps that many voices:
More than 180,000 worldwide have joined an online protest claiming the images, shown on European-language pages and taken from Persian and Ottoman miniatures dating from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, are offensive to Islam, which prohibits any representation of Muhammad. But the defiant editors of the encyclopaedia insist they will not bow to pressure and say anyone objecting to the controversial images can simply adjust their computers so they do not have to look at them.
The say furthermore:
'Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with the goal of representing all topics from a neutral point of view, Wikipedia is not censored for the benefit of any particular group.
Via Dhimmi Watch which does note Wikipedia's weaknesses:
Anyway, while I respect this "defiance," ordinarily talking about Wikipedia defying anything is silly. Wikipedia doesn't defy. For the most part it is a sandbox with no grownups. Anyone can come in with a can of spray paint and "vandalize" any topic he chooses. Just the other day I was alerted to the fact that on my ridiculous bio there, a poster had added "died 2008" after "born 1962." Classy! It's gone now, but it demonstrates anew how worthless Wikipedia really is, despite its good stand on this issue. It is too easy to sow disinformation (and, in my case, make threats) there.
Or lets put it another way, Wikipedia may be brave but it is what it is and should be used accordingly. Personally I'll stick with this one.
Posted by Peter at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2008
The best from China
China might not do well on the free speech side of the net but there is one thing that they do very well:
The virus, which Computer Associates calls Mocmex, recognizes and blocks antivirus protection from more than 100 security vendors, as well as the security and firewall built into Microsoft Windows. It downloads files from remote locations and hides files, which it names randomly, on any PC it infects, making itself very difficult to remove. It spreads by hiding itself on photo frames and any other portable storage device that happens to be plugged into an infected PC.
That last sentence is the big warning and a large problem. I see a big batch of headache on the way.
Posted by Peter at 05:35 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2008
We waited 6 months for this?
I haven't busted vista in a bit but this note from Slashdot fills one with foreboding of evil:
Echostorm writes with word that Windows Vista SP1, which began rolling out via Automatic Update, has left some users' machines un-bootable. The update loops forever on "Configuring updates: Stage 3 of 3 — 0% complete. Do not turn off your computer."
By an odd coincidence something similar happened to my vista machine a few days ago. As my son had accidentally unplugged the power to my laptop I assumed that was the cause when I had to restore and my system wouldn't boot. This is certainly not the way for Vista to win hearts and minds.
Posted by Peter at 04:54 PM | Comments (0)
Razer BoomSlang 2007 Collectors Edition
Had some new software to play with and decided to make a video unwrapping my new Razer BoomSlang 2007 Collectors Edition gaming mouse. Try saying that all in one breath!
Enjoy
BoomSlang 2007 CE Unwrapping - Awesome video clips here
Posted by Hector at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2008
Another reason to worry
As if there weren't enough to worry about on security end that we've talked about already via Glenn here is a biggie for business:
That networked multifunction printer sitting innocently in the corner of your office just might be the most significant entry point for hackers to hijack sensitive data from your business.
Is he kidding?
"When I was doing my research, I had dozens and dozens of MFDs under my control, and no one in IT knew what I was doing. The idea of an attacker having equipment completely under their control on a company's internal network is a frightening proposition," O'Connor said in an interview with eWEEK.
No I guess he's not. Although he does say that the home network is not in much danger, not so for a business:
"Should my mom be worried that a hacker is living in her printer? No. But, if you're a Fortune 500 company, vulnerable printers on your network is a scary thing," Ptacek said in an interview with eWEEK.
I hate to admit it but I never even thought of this, but it makes sense we are no longer dealing with single function items. Just goes to show you everything cost something.
Posted by Peter at 01:43 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2008
The Evolution of SpyWare
Spyware has sadly become a household word in America. There are so many different flavors of it with even more purposes that it's amazing. Someday, ordering a pizza may become an eye opening experience on just how much personal information can end up out there.
Recently, a popular site called FaceBook, was highlighted on CBS's 60 Minutes. It was a story on how FaceBook shares information between members rather publicly using Beacon's software. In this story on 60 Minutes in January, the ad software by a company called Beacon is called into question. It is the part of FaceBook that tells your online buddies what your preferences are. In this case, a man's purchase of an expensive diamond ring to his wife was exposed to his wife via FaceBook, spoiling the suprise. In that case an expensive suprise was spoiled. Imagine what other embarrassing items might come to light unintentionally.
So remember folks, when you post something online, you never know where that information is going to end up. If you wouldn't shout it out in a room ful lof listening strangers, then think twice about posting it.
Or next time you try to order that meat lover's pizza, you could end up with a beansprout sandwich. :)
Posted by Bernie at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)
Barbarian follow up
It's been two years since our posts on the Danish Muhammad cartoon flap. It may be two years but barbarians are like elephants, they never forget:
The arrests were made in pre-dawn raids in Aarhus, western Denmark, "to prevent a terror-related murder," the police intelligence agency said. It did not say how many people were arrested nor did it mention which cartoonist was targeted.However, according to Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the drawings on Sept. 30, 2005, the suspects were planning to kill its cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
"There were very concrete murder plans against Kurt Westergaard," said Carsten Juste, the paper's editor-in-chief.
The 73 year old cartoonist and his wife are living under police protection. It is very likely that this will have to continue for a very long time.
The newspaper in Denmark has to it credit has reprinted the cartoons in solidarity with the cartoonist today. Several major blogs have also done so.
Two years ago I pointed to the reasons why we didn't publish the cartoons on our posts concerning the matter.
In my opinion those circumstances have changed. It is impossible to tell the story without showing the cartoon in question. And it is a story that needs to be told. The great strength and advantage of the internet is the free sharing of information. We have written about it over and over again (even before we had a category for it). It's time to put our pixels where our mouths fingers are.
The day when images like this are censored and those who make then slain will be a dark day for the internet. But if you might recall a lot of this trouble was completely contrived.
Posted by Peter at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)
Microsoft Vista Update
I like to look at update details before applying to see what the update is for. I couldn't help but scratch my head when I read the details in Vista update KB943302 which has a soft block (warns about incompatibility) with WinAntiVirus 2007 Pro which is rogue software that falsely claims a system is infected in order to get your cash and does not do what it advertises. WinAntiVirus is bad software. If anything they should have blocked it from even running on the system. Read more about this infection HERE.
Posted by Hector at 01:04 AM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2008
Backup on bad facts
When we said that attacks on a systems are a source of income that people will fight for we weren't kidding:
The study finds that a complex and sophisticated criminal economy has developed to capitalise <sic> on Web vulnerabilities. Underground brokers are delivering tools to aid in obfuscation, or camouflaging attacks on browsers, so cybercriminals can avoid detection by security software. In 2006, only a small percentage of attackers employed camouflaging techniques, but this number soared to 80 percent during the first half of 2007, and reached nearly 100 percent by the end of the year. The X-Force believes the criminal element will contribute to a proliferation of attacks in 2008.Using these techniques, cybercriminals can infiltrate a user's system and steal their IDs and passwords or obtain personal information like National Identification numbers, Social Security numbers and credit card information. When attackers invade an enterprise machine, they could steal sensitive company information or use the compromised machine to gain access to other corporate assets behind the firewall.
This is only going to get worse.
Posted by Peter at 09:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2008
Nasty Realities
It seems to me people seem rather surprised at their experiences with virus' and spyware lately, their presence, their persistence, and what about the protection I have, why hasn't it stopped them? This suggests that it is time to state and/or repeat some unfortunate realities of this modern PC world...
Nasty Reality #1: Today's Virus' and spyware are a for profit business:
Years ago guys used to hack people system for fun. The Stoned virus announced that your system was stoned (slowed it down something nasty). Guys would re-program your screen so you would come back from lunch with your image upside down. Those days are gone.Today Virus' and spyware are a multi-million dollar industry who's goal is to separate you from your money and or mine marketable information for sale to others. That system infection you have is making a buck for somebody somewhere and that leads to rule 2...
Nasty Reality #2: These people will fight to keep your money.
Every time you succeed in removing a virus or blocking some spyware used by these folks you are taking money out of their pockets (granted it is your money but they don't look at it like that). It is my experience that thieves resent losing money even more that the people they steal from. They generally don't take this lying down so they will constantly seek new ways to get in your system, new variants and new tweaks to get around the various protections that are out there. This results in the next nasty reality...
Nasty Reality #3: Anti-Virus' and anti-spyware makers are constantly on the defensive
Basically it is reacting to type of attacks, styles of attacks and particular programs. The problem is that many of these styles can be used by legitimate programs such as games or peer to peer networks. In addition some of these programs arise due to operating system holes that need to be patched by the makers (read Microsoft). As far as your protection is concerned this is just another computer program and the system has to decide if this program vs the other program is something good or something bad. That is why your firewall may ask you questions about this program or that program. If you automate that decision it will sooner or later either block something you want passed or pass something that you want blocked. That leads to another nasty reality...
Nasty Reality #4 Having anti-virus and anti-spyware doesn't guarantee you will never get infected.
The various anti-virus makes and anti-spyware makers will do their best to keep you protected, as soon as they are aware of threats and have solutions to them they will make updates but remember each fix and change takes time and during that time you will be open to attack. Of course minor variants are going to be picked up and fixed pretty quick but major stuff will usually take at least a few days to digest an solve. That is bad enough but it is my experience that most of the actual virus' and spyware that hit a system are entirely preventable. This is do to the truest (and least popular) nasty reality...
Nasty Reality #5 Users tend to trigger most of the virus that hit them by sins of commission or omission
Sometimes it is due to being tricked, a "windows" warning that really isn't but many times it is that decision to use that P2P software, to accept that file from that stranger in chat, to open that e-mail that looks odd, to go to that racy site. Sometimes it just not bothering to do something; it's just too annoying to block out your teenagers from those web sites, or to monitor where they go or to set connection rules for going to the net, or to set that exception to play the game or to have to deal with that annoying warning message, and besides I'm just an avg guy what good is hacking me? This type of thinking keeps a lot of these guys in business and will continue to do so. It is like having a great alarm system on your house and leaving the doors and windows open because of it. Authors of this stuff bet on human nature and they win over and over again.
These realities are things that have to be faced. When they are faced and acted upon your chances of having a problem drop like a rock. We at HiWired can and will help all we can to protect you, but in the end a cautious and vigilant user is the best protection against today's internet thieves.
Posted by Peter at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2008
Here is your answer David
A few days ago a fellow named David asked a question in the comments, a pretty basic one:
How does a Microchip work?
The funny thing is for a complicated device the answer is pretty basic. It's all comes down to zeros and ones...
(This is a pretty simple answer you can find more complicated stuff online or in a good encyclopedia.)
A microchip is simply an electrical circuit that performs functions. The idea is that in a microchip the functions are integrated and made smaller the idea begin that a single chip can preform many electrical functions and even specialized functions depending on the type an use, but it its most basic form it is creating a "0" or a "1" state based on flow.
That basic 0 or 1 (bit) is the basis for everything you see in a computer or something that uses a computer from the clock on your microwave to the TiVo and your PC and even the blog that you are now reading. The Youtube video from the visual basic to the C language to the machine language to the Hex Value to the bytes all come down to the single 0 / 1 bit from the electrical flow, and that is how a microchip and frankly our modern society works.
It's really something isn't it?
Posted by Peter at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)
February 09, 2008
Will you take the federal trade commission's word for it?
We spend a lot of time repeating warnings about being careful on the internet. Judging from what I've seen there are plenty of people who haven't gotten the word.
Lucky for everyone concerned (except the bad guys) the Federal Trade Commission is on the job They have a very useful document called. Protection Personal information a guide for Business that has some great tips for both the businessman and the home user.
If you don't want to bother with the PDF the html version is here and an online tutorial version is here.
Read it so you don't weep.
Posted by Peter at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2008
moving slowly to the (comcast) digital age
Well kicking and screaming I am slowing being dragged into the 21st century.
This Wednesday Comcast came in and installed the digital phone on one of my phone lines (I am keeping my Verison hard line on the other).
The install was fairly quick although he noticed a poor signal strength that he was able to repair outside of the house. The modem popped in fast and the install was very direct. I haven't noticed any change to my internet speed or my quality of phone.
It remains to be seen what it does to my phone bill on the verizon side
Posted by Peter at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)
February 07, 2008
Chock full of stuff
Today Slashdot is a goldmine for cool tech stories, just start at the top and scroll down, the highlights as far as I can see:
OsX vs Vista vs Linux who will fall first?
Master Diebold key copied from web site
Paper ballots anyone?
Users Worldwide feel the internet is safer:
Remember "Safer" is a relative term.
It updates during the day so just keep scrolling for other stuff or click the links for the stories I like.
Posted by Peter at 08:59 AM | Comments (0)
Microsoft responds to the XP Petition
Computer world (via slashdot) covers the Microsoft "save the OS" petition and Microsoft's reaction to it:
In late November, a survey of 961 IT professionals conducted by King Research found 90 per cent of respondents had concerns about migrating to Vista. Apprehension stemmed primarily from stability issues, but also due to compatibility problems and the cost in both hardware and software terms of migrating. 44 per cent said they would consider non-Windows operating systems to avoid these migration issues, with many stating that virtualization had made it easier to implement alternative operating systems.In response to Infoworld's petition and other pro-XP outpourings of support, a Microsoft spokesperson in the US told Computerworld: "We're aware of it, but are listening first and foremost to feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs. That's what informed our decision to extend the availability of XP initially, and what will continue to guide us."
Read the whole article; the response sounds kinda weasely.
Posted by Peter at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)
February 06, 2008
Wrong way to do it
Ebay has changed the way people sell things. Now they've changed the way people use the service, at least in the UK:
Sellers on eBay will no longer be allowed to leave critical comments about buyers.The online marketplace is introducing the move later this year in an attempt to end the heated exchanges that have slowed the site down.
The ban on negative feedback does not, however, extend to buyers, who will still be able to leave unfavourable comments about their purchases.
Forgetting the unfairness of it all why not use the novel idea of improving the speed of servers rather than removing services.
Update: Apparently this is worldwide and there are more things that sellers are not liking:
Sellers on eBay's normally rancorous message boards were apoplectic, using phrases like "extortion" to describe the news. On Wednesday several began calling for a general strike, under which sellers would withhold listings for a week.Ebay's complex new rules affect sellers in almost every part of a transaction.
It reduces upfront costs such as listing fees, which will drop from a starting price of $0.20 to $0.15 for traditional auction listings, and makes gallery photos free. However, eBay is adding more costs to the back end for many sellers with higher final-value fees, the commission eBay takes after a sale.
Sample reaction:
I AM IN...........and will be looking elsewhere!!!!!!!!This use to be fun....now I feel like I am working to pay my ebay fees....time to stop.
eBay seems to have forgotten they are not a storefront. It take 15 min to find another online auction site and it doesn't involve leases and heavy moves.
Posted by Peter at 10:22 PM | Comments (1)
February 05, 2008
Glutton for punishment
One of the things about YouTube and the internet revolution. You get to see what might have been, these are things you wouldn't have seen before.
Arrugh!
Posted by Peter at 09:38 PM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2008
Three more cheers for wikipedia
You might remember two years ago China wanted Wikipedia to censor politically sensitive sites and wikipedia told them to take a flying leap.
At the time we said this:
Wikipedia has its faults, but apparently lack of guts or honor is not among them.
Well it looks like their guts haven't decreased over time as groups have demanded removal of images of Muhammad from the entry on the founder of Islam.
Wikipedia being wikipedia had this to say:
Please note that discussion on this talk page has determined that pictures of Muhammad will not be removed from this article and any removal of the pictures without discussion here first will be reverted on sight. If you wish to discuss the inclusion of pictures in the article, please read over previous discussions here, here, and here and the Muhammad article FAQ at this page.
Fearless internet speech, gotta love it.
Posted by Peter at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2008
ARRUGH!
So much for the working stat.
Well at least it wasn't something important like Red Sox Baseball...
Posted by Peter at 10:41 PM | Comments (0)
Not quite a holiday
Today is Superbowl Sunday. It is not a national holiday but it might as well be the way the country treats it.
HiWired will of course be open 24/7.
As far as the game goes the most important stat is this:
On Superbowl Sunday's that I have off, the Patriots are 0-2.
On Superbowl Sunday's that I work, the Patriots are 3-0.
Today I work 1 p.m. to Midnight.
Posted by Peter at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2008
New laptops from Sony
Well Sony is upgrading their new laptop lines:
The VAIO AR60 series, which Sony says was the first ever notebook to boast an integrated Blu-ray Disc drive, now has an Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 processor at its heart (model VGN-AR61ZU). It also features a full 4GB of RAM, the nVidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics chip with 512MB of RAM, a 17-inch X-black screen with a 1,920-x-1,200 resolution and two lamps. For fun outside of work, the laptop has a DVB-T digital tuner and an HDMI output for connecting TVs.
It will be interesting to see what kind of splash these laptops make.
UPDATE: title and post edited.
Posted by Peter at 04:55 PM | Comments (0)
February 01, 2008
The end to the beginning
The first time I ever went on the internet it at a college that a friend of mine worked at sometime in the mid 90's, we were there for a D&D game.
I opened up a program I'd never seen before and low and behold the New York times appeared on my screen. The Times doesn't get my blood flowing anymore but that first use of Netscape navigator was really something.
Well those days are over as Netscape is as of today no longer supported.
February 1, marks the demise of Netscape Navigator, the first commercial web browser.Navigator will continue to function should you happen to have a recent copy stashed away. But America Online, which has been Netscape’s guardian during its long, downward slide in popularity, will no longer support the browser and will stop releasing updates. Support for all versions of the software will be off-loaded to the Netscape community forum. Netscape.com will continue to live on as a web portal.
It was once top dog but Microsoft and Internet Explorer defeated it. The successor to it Mozilla/firefox is slowing growing again but Netscape itself is done. Just for the fun of it I installed it today for that reason.
Meanwhile Google is next in Microsoft's sights as it is looking at Yahoo:
Microsoft's audacious attempt to buy Yahoo, spelled out in an unsolicited offer announced Friday, shows just how much Google threatens the world's largest software maker's grip on how people interact with computers.For Yahoo, the bid represents another painful reminder of how missed opportunities and mismanagement combined to open the door for Google to supplant it as the Internet's main gateway, decimating its stock price in the process.
Google, be afraid, be very afraid.
via LFG
Posted by Peter at 03:48 PM | Comments (0)