Trojan targets Windows Mobile

McAfee has unearthed a Windows Mobile PocketPC Trojan that disables security, installs via a memory card, can’t be uninstalled and makes itself your home page.
According McAfee’s Avert Labs blog, the Trojan has been discovered in China. Here’s how it works according to researcher Jimmy Shah:
WinCE/InfoJack sends the infected device’s serial number, operating system and other information to the author of the Trojan. It also leaves the infected mobile device vulnerable by allowing silent installation of malware. The Trojan modifies the infected device’s security setting to allow unsigned applications to be installed without a warning.
The Trojan was packed inside a number of legitimate installation files and distributed widely. It has been distributed with Google Maps, applications for stock trading, and a collection of games.
Considering the penetration of mobile devices in Asia this malware could raise quite a ruckus.
Shah reckons that WinCE/InfoJack was created by a web site that may have hired a hacker to create the malware and then distribute it. The Trojan installs as an autorun program on the memory card, installs itself when that memory card is inserted and can’t be deleted. It also becomes your home page.
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Private IE 8 beta 1 test build coming soon

A number of Microsoft enthusiasts this week received invitations to a “limited technical beta program” for Internet Explorer (IE) 8 Beta 1.
According to the invitation, Microsoft is planning to make IE 8 Beta 1 available to the general public, as well. But before that happens, an invitation-only tet program will be conducted. The invitation describes IE 8 Beta 1 being focused on developers.
(ActiveWin is running the full text of the note Microsoft sent to some IE 8 beta invitees this past week.)
Microsoft officials have said they plan to show off IE 8 at Microsoft’s Mix ‘08 conference in early March in Las Vegas. Officials also have said they are planning to add a developer-selectable “super-standards” mode to IE 8 that would enable the browser to qualify as more standards-compliant.
Microsoft still has not offered a final-delivery target date for IE 8. Microsoft released IE 7 in 2006. Microsoft officials have said they are shooting to deliver more frequent, regular builds of IE

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Take your software, settings and data with you on ANY device, and run on ANY PC

MojoPac is a technology that transforms your iPod or USB Hard Drive or Flash drive into a portable and private PC. Just install MojoPac on any USB 2.0 compliant storage device, upload your applications and files, modify your user settings and environment preferences, and take it with you everywhere.
Every time you plug your MojoPac-enabled device into any Windows XP PC , MojoPac automatically launches your environment on the host PC. Your communications, music, games, applications, and files are all local and accessible. And when you unplug the MojoPac device, no trace is left behind – your information is not cached on the host PC.

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Middle East IT managers wants greater mail server reliability

A survey recently performed by NetApp asking Middle Eastern IT managers and Exchange administrators what they wanted from Microsoft’s Exchange software has shown the number one concern in the region to be reliability.
86 such managers were involved in the survey, 26% of which felt more detailed backup and recovery options should have top priority, while 22% wanted the ability to scale on the fly.
But it was greater reliability that took first place, with improvement desired by 46% of those surveyed.
"Exchange is a critical business application in Middle Eastern companies –Exchange downtime is simply unacceptable in today's 24/7 world," said Marty Molnar, Regional Area Director of Middle East and North Africa at NetApp. "As a result, we are seeing an increased demand for technologies that improve the uptime levels and management of Exchange data. With migration to Exchange 2007 being a top priority for many companies in the next two years, the issues of reliability and manageability will become even more important."
NetApp understand that only 1% of managers are currently using Exchange 2007. However, they believe over 85% are planning migrations to future iterations of the server software over the next two years.
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VMware signs deal to embed software in HP servers

VMware and Hewlett-Packard said on Tuesday they have signed an agreement to integrate VMware's virtualization software into 10 models of HP's computer servers. The companies said the joint offering will help customers adopt virtualization with greater speed and simplicity.
Virtualization technology allows a single server to perform the work of 10 or more machines by creating multiple virtual computers that run simultaneously on the machine. The technology helps cut costs for equipment, electricity, and labor. The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the VMware had also struck similar preinstallation deals with Dell, IBM, and Fujitsu Siemens.
©2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. CNET , CNET.com , and the CNET logo are registered trademarks of CNET Networks, Inc. Used by permission.

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Portals in a Web 2.0 World

Web 2.0 refers primarily to two major paradigm shifts in the way people use the Web: thin client computing and user-generated content. The portal plays a pivotal role in both areas. In thin client computing, data and applications are stored on Web servers, and a user has access from any computer via a Web browser, thus turning the Web into a gigantic application server -- a penultimate manifestation of Web 2.0.

Whither lies the true "doorway" to the Web 2.0 world?
The search for this golden portal into the future Web has launched a mega-billion dollar corporate competitive scramble with no complete solution in sight -- yet.
Portals come in three basic varieties, according to a study of portal business models by the University of Washington's School of Business:
Horizontal portals like Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) , Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) , MSN and AOL provide gateway access to the Internet's vast store of content and services along with a broad range of tools for locating information and Web sites, communicating with others and developing online communities of interest. They make money through advertising and transaction fees from multiple vertical solutions channels.
Vertical portals like WebFlyer and WebMD provide deep content, a place to conduct business, learn and shop, communities and community-building tools. These portals are often composed of a variety of business models, all of which generate separate revenue streams, including advertising and referral fees (if transactions are not completed online). Service fees and transaction fees may be generated if transactions are completed online, and subscription fees may also be generated for unique content.
Affinity portals like iVillage.com (women) and Realtor.com (realtors) provide deep content, commerce and community features like those found in vertical portals, but these offerings are targeted toward a specific market segment or even a specific gender. The revenue model is similar to vertical portals, with cost and asset models based on the business model adopted by the portal.
New York-based Internet specialist JupiterResearch predicts that 80 percent of U.S. households that are online will be using broadband by 2010. As a result, portals and content sites will be forced to compete for market share by experimenting with broadband-oriented technologies such as Flash-based home pages and customized RSS (really simple syndication) feeds.



Web 2.0 refers primarily to two major paradigm shifts in the way people use the Web: thin client computing and user-generated content. The portal plays a pivotal role in both areas.
In thin client computing, data and applications are stored on Web servers, and a user has access from any computer via a Web browser, thus turning the Web into a gigantic application server -- a penultimate manifestation of Web 2.0.
Google Apps is a collection of Google applications and utilities offered as a package, either free or paid for. In 2007, Google combined its e-mail, instant messaging, calendar, word processing, spreadsheet and Web authoring applications along with administration utilities into Standard and Premier Editions, which are free and paid, respectively.
By offering a paid, Web-based office suite of primary business applications with tech support, Google used the thin client computing concept to jump into the office software arena in direct competition with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Office suites.
The significant difference is that Google Apps is Web-based. Users can access sufficiently functional office applications (word processor, spreadsheet, etc.) online through the Google portal at a comparatively low price. With GoogleApps, Google has created a bona fide Web 2.0-like portal that has Microsoft very concerned for its earth-bound office application software business -- another good reason for that US$44 billion bid for Yahoo.
User-generated content (UGC) involves posting digital video, blogging, podcasting, news, gossip, research, mobile phone photography and wikis on social networking sites like MySpace , Facebook and Flickr. UGC lets everyone have their say on anything and publish it to the world at large.
This is made possible through Web application services, a standardized way of integrating Web-based applications using the XML (Extensible Markup Language), SOAP, WSDL (Web Services Description Language) and UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) open standards over an Internet protocol backbone. XML is used to tag the data, SOAP is used to transfer the data, WSDL is used for describing the services available, and UDDI is used for listing what services are available.
Rich-Internet application techniques such as Ajax, Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) Flash, Flex, Java , and Silverlight have the potential to improve the user-experience in browser-based applications. These technologies allow a Web page to request an update for some part of its content, and to alter that part in the browser, without needing to refresh the whole page at the same time.
Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a group of interrelated Web development techniques used for creating interactive Web applications. A primary Ajax characteristic is the increased responsiveness and interactivity of Web pages achieved by exchanging small amounts of data with the server "behind the scenes" so that the entire Web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user performs an action. This increases the Web page's interactivity, speed, functionality and usability.
Portlets (a.k.a. "gadgets," "widgets," "Web parts," "mini-apps," etc.) are specialized content areas that occupy small windows on portal pages -- e.g., weather info, news flashes, stock tickers, etc. Java Specification Request (JSR) 168 standards enable portal developers, administrators and consumers to integrate standards-based portals and portlets across a variety of vendor solutions. As Web applications within a browser window, displayed in an effective layout, portlets are aggregated by the portal page.
User-friendly portals feature design elements that provide a usable and convenient interface to facilitate a user's primary goal: finishing the task at hand. Good page design means clear and consistent navigational aids -- page names, logos, banners, icons, background colors -- as visual clues for users to move easily through the site's menu structure, with content links and applications right on the home page or just a click away.
Modern portals embody all of the characteristics and capabilities of consumer Web 2.0 applications: dynamic usability (Ajax, drag-and-drop, in-place refresh), tagging, simpler user experiences and tools, participant-driven capabilities and experiences, says Mark Carges, executive vice president of portal vendor BEA Systems (Nasdaq: BEAS) .
"For new Web 2.0 applications -- wikis, blogs, collaborative search, mashups -- portals are a logical aggregation point," he told TechNewsWorld.
Ease of Use Paramount
As Web applications become more sophisticated, people can easily develop elaborate personal Web pages, create a blog, and upload their own opinions, audio and video. Users can augment the news by reporting hot stories, sometimes faster than and with details often overlooked or ignored by the professional news media.
"The dominant use of public portals is still aggregating news feeds," observed Omar Al Zabir, CTO of Pageflakes and author of the book Building a Web 2.0 Portal with ASP.NET 3.5.
A Portal 2.0 candidate, Pageflakes is an Ajax-based start page and social networking site similar to Netvibes, MyYahoo, iGoogle and Microsoft Live. The site is organized into tabs, each tab containing user-selected modules called "Flakes." Each Flake varies in content -- information such as RSS/Atom feeds, calendar, to-do list, Web search, weather forecast, del.icio.us bookmarks, Flickr photos, social networking tools like Facebook, YouTube , Twitter, e-mail and user-created modules -- designed for using the Web at school, work and at home.
"We have many varieties of verticals using Pageflakes as their portal," Al Zabir told TechNewsWorld. "Education is the strongest among all. Teachers and students use Pageflakes to aggregate articles and news feeds, collect research materials on their portal pages. Social groups gather on Pageflakes and collaboratively work on their portals. Family pages show family members are bringing together family photos, calendars, to-do-lists and many interesting topics. RSS junkies use Pageflakes to aggregate hundreds of RSS feeds into organized tabs."
UGC reflects the expansion of media production through new technologies that are accessible and affordable to the general public. In this New Media scenario, the traditional model of big media businesses generating content and consumers passively consuming is subsumed by a new paradigm in which the consumer has increasing control over the timing, channel and format by which content is created and absorbed.
The basic problem with this setup is that it requires time and energy to pull it off properly. Web 2.0 is really about building applications that make everyday tasks easier, according to Publishing 2.0 blogger Scott Karp. His examples of successful portals include Google (search), eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) (sell/buy), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) reviews/recommendations (shop) and Flickr (organize/share photos). Karp makes the case that the average person doesn't have much time or interest in doing a lot of voting, tagging, saving, commenting and creating media, and has patience for only a finite amount of choice. Web 2.0 media applications, according to Karp, are really just for bloggers and other people with the drive to create their own media.
"For most of us, media consumption consists of reading or viewing and then moving on to something else," he said.
Karp highlights "ease of use" as the key factor in any successful Web 2.0 portal. He gives Flickr and MySpace props as shining examples of doing things right.
"Flickr makes the task at hand (organizing/sharing pictures) easier," he contended. "What problem does MySpace solve? It's not about media consumption, and it's not even about content creation. It's about what young people in particular want to do most: socialize. MySpace makes it easier to hang out and be seen. It makes it easy to create your own space -- something that is difficult for teenagers, indie bands, etc."
Facebook also has its advocates. David Sacks, the founder and CEO of new startup Geni (and previously PayPal COO) said that Facebook has a new answer to the portal question -- the "social graph," or a person's network of relationships, will push information to that individual.
"The potential for Facebook to layer on any feature whose value increases with the participation of friends is an incredibly broad canvas for a portal," Sacks blogged on TechCrunch. "Moreover, as each new application gains acceptance, it enriches the overall value of the network and makes it incrementally more likely that the next application will be tried. Much of what we know as 'Web 2.0' will eventually be rebuilt on top of Facebook."
The Web's growing complexity has made portals essential to Internet users, Web20Portals.com's Jacques Beaudoin told TechNewsWorld.
"Due to the growing complexity of the Web, portals have become essential to the Internet users in this new Web 2.0 world. By providing a pathway to other content, portals facilitate the access to information and make the users experience more enjoyable and rewarding. This is why portals are now experiencing serious growth and in my opinion will keep on growing in the future as their usage will become more and more indispensable."

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Crackpot technologies that could shake up IT

It doesn't take a genius to catch on to the fact that in IT, innovation is a mandate. Push the envelope of what's possible, or find yourself relegated to wayside. But, to borrow a favored David St. Hubbins Spinal Tap aphorism, there's a fine line between clever and crackpot when it comes to making good on technological breakthroughs in the enterprise.
It is in that spirit that we revisit last year's level-headed look at crackpot technologies that could transform the enterprise, putting the screws to a new rack of could-be enterprise contenders. But before you write off nanotech or direct brain interfaces as the next big enterprise thing, consider this:
[ For an in-depth look at last year's crackpot tech assessments, see: 12 crackpot tech ideas that could transform the enterprise ]
Of the dozen technologies we examined last year, several made significant enterprise-minded strides since we first assessed their IT prospects. Desktop Web apps, for one, lent credence to the conjecture that fat productivity suites might just have a shorter future than previously thought; solid-state drives popped up everywhere, from ultramobile laptops to the datacenter; and Sun's datacenter-in-a-box proved compelling enough for Google to move first to patent it. Even quantum cryptography received a vote of confidence, with Switzerland tapping the technology to protect parliamentary election transmissions.
Sure, some of this year's out-there technologies may prove fruit for future high-profile tech flops lists, but without forward-thinking, there would be no worthwhile enterprise advancement. So raise your eyebrows or your suspicions as you deem fit, and join us in assessing the potential each of the following technologies has to earn IT's respect or derision.
• Nanotechnology• Optical computing• Pervasive computing• Wireless power• The $100 laptop• Direct brain interfaces• Enterprise supercomputing• Virtual worlds

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Is a free global WiFi network possible?

WeFi is hoping to do for WiFi connectivity what Facebook has done for social networking.
WeFi creates software that can be downloaded for free onto laptops or mobile devices that the company says will enhance WiFi connectivity and provide mobile devices with more powerful connection tools.
Once the software is installed, it begins searching for WiFi hot spots in a user's area and allows them to map all the hot spots in their vicinity through the Google Maps application. The eventual goal, WeFi says, is to create a global map of wireless hot spots that can be used as a reference for members of the WeFi community who want to find internet access in new locations.
In this Q&A with WeFi CEO Zur Feldman, we discuss how WeFi works, how it enables WiFi connectivity, and how the company plans to make money from creating a virtual global WiFi network.
What is WeFi's end goal?
Feldman: Feldman: We basically want to provide and create a virtual global network which is free to allow everyone to get on whenever they choose and to have a service of broadband through WiFi all over world. We want people to be able to use that platform to communicate with friends, and to use applications such as voice to connect with people all over the place without needing to pay any kinds of fees. In short, the end goal is to create a global virtual network based on WiFi.
And how does WeFi plan on creating that network?
Feldman: We're providing a technological platform that allows people to take advantage of hot spots around world. We have mapped close to 300,000 hot spots around the world, and we're adding more every single day. We also have a platform for mobile devices that have ability to connect to WiFi, including the iPhone and the Nokia E65. Our software allows them to use the hot spots as their network.
I want to get a better idea of how this technology works. Essentially, people download software from your site that increases their computers' or wireless devices' ability to find and connect to WiFi hot spots in the area, correct?
Feldman: Yes, that's part of it. We also have algorithms written into the software that automatically connect your device to the best available hot spot. If, for example, you had a mobile device and you wanted to download an application and there are several hot spots in your area, you could literally walk from one area to another and not lose your connection. We have the ability to connect one WiFi area to the next seamlessly, as long as they have an overlapping range. You can basically have an experience like a mobile phone experience, because we check and test the hot spots automatically, and we are able to connect you without even noticing.
Additionally, every time someone connects to a hot spot and maps it, we get information from them that gives us all the information about that hot spot and its connectivity. We'll be able to connect you without all the different handshakes: it's like you've been connected before even if you've never been there before. The nice thing about this is that people are actually doing this work for us by mapping all the hot spots in their area.
How do you get around the fact that so many WiFi hot spots are password protected?
Feldman: What we have found is that more than 50 per cent of the hot spots that people are mapping are wide open. A lot of businesses have open WiFi hot spots in order to entice customers to spend time there. A lot of times, people are willing to share their password for devices that are encrypted. More and more, we're seeing more trends for WiFi networks to open up. We believe it's a social phenomenon where people can share and enjoy WiFi, and share pictures and videos with each other. Once people map these areas more and more in their area, the more they'll be able to take advantage of them.
How do you handle security issues? Does WeFi have a way of making unsecured WiFi hot spots more secure?
Feldman: Whenever you use an open Wi-Fi hot spot, it's open. And when you use an open platform, there's no way to secure it. However, it's also possible for users to share the security codes with each other for password-protected wireless networks, so wherever you go you'll have the ability to log into the secure network with the code you've gotten.
How are you making money with this company?
Feldman: It's analogous to what Google is doing by providing a search free of charge. But while the search engine is free, in essence it's a platform that Google has that allows them to sell advertising, and they can monetize it in many different ways. We create a platform that people can enjoy and utilize in many different ways. And because we have data on so many hot spots, we can have very specific location-based advertising that we can target at different areas. The ads will generally appear onscreen as banners for handheld devices and laptops, much as Google ads do.
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Laptop Battery melts (LG/Samsung)

Samsung Electronic laptop battery melts
LG Electronics Inc. halted sales of one of its laptop computer models after a report of a battery meltdown

Putting terabytes of memory into servers, the cheap way

Disk drives have only recently begun to be measured in terabytes. MetaRam CEO Fred Weber is talking about putting terabytes of memory into servers.
The San Jose, Calif.-based company, which is just coming out of stealth mode and has received money from three of the four founders of Sun Microsystems, has devised a chipset that effectively lets computer makers or owners double or quadruple the amount of memory in their systems fairly cheaply. A standard two-processor server on the market right now might have a ceiling of 64GB (gigabytes) of memory. By inserting DIMMs (dual inline memory modules) equipped with MetaRam's chips into the same server, the capacity can go to 128GB or 256GB.
Eight-processor servers normally capped at 256GB of memory thus can hit 512GB or 1 terabyte of memory. As memory density increases, so does the capacity allowed by MetaRam. Thus, if the limit for an eight-processor server climbs to 512MB because memory chips can hold more data, a MetaRam-enabled computer could conceivable hold 2 terabytes.
The company's chipsets are largely aimed at ameliorating the growing gap between processor capabilities and memory capacity, said Weber, who used to be the CTO at Advanced Micro Devices. Chipmakers are now coming out with chips with four and more cores. (Sun's Niagara has eight cores with eight processing threads per core.)
Performance continues to double about every 18 months or so. Memory capacity on servers, however, doubles only about every three years, Weber said. As a result, the performance of certain computers (depending on the application) is limited by memory more than processor power.
Credit: MetaRam MetaRam's chips on a DIMM.
To make up the difference, server makers have to add more memory to their boxes. But in existing situations that means adding more slots for DIMMs on a motherboard, which is expensive and requires a redesign. MetaRam's chips let server makers do the same thing without adding slots. The chipset--which is shipping now--costs $200 in 1,000-unit quantities.
A conventional four-processor 256GB server can run into the hundreds of thousands; the same server with MetaRam-enabled DIMMs might cost $50,000, Weber said.
"I like it. It solves the basic problem of how to get a lot of memory into a finite number of slots," said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64.
Potential customers include financial institutions, which run rapid, data-intense simulations, scientific researchers, and the people rendering 3D and animated movies--about 10 percent to 20 percent of the server market.
Smart Modular Technologies and South Korea's Hynix have already agreed to produce DIMMs with MetaRam's chips. Servers and workstations from Rackable Systems, Colfax International, and other manufacturers focused on high-end computing have also said they will put these DIMMs into products in the first quarter of 2008.
MetaRam's chipset serves as a conduit between the memory chips located on the DIMM and the computer's memory controller, known as the Northbridge. Typically, memory chips speak straight to the Northbridge. In MetaRam's system, signals to and from memory go through its chips first.
"You might call it (MetaRam's chipset) an intermediate memory controller," Weber said. "Instead of talking to four 1-gigabit DRAMs, we make it think it is talking to one 4-gigabit DRAM." (Chips are measured in gigabits, while DIMMS which hold chips get measured in gigabytes.)
The company also has tailored its business plans to avoid antagonizing the incumbents, he added. Memory makers like it because they can design a new DIMM to accommodate the chip, and voila, start selling a new, higher-margin product. In the past, Rambus came up with a way to improve memory performance, but it required designing a whole new memory chip. Big mistake, Weber said.
Server makers like it because it lets them add more memory to their boxes without tinkering with a new motherboard. (Because the chip comes on a prepackaged DIMM from one of their usual suppliers, server makers also don't have to deal directly with a start-up, something they are rarely fond of.)
Intel and Advanced Micro Devices likely won't try to develop this type of chip, Weber argued. The type of functionality that comes from MetaRam's chips isn't easy to integrate into conventional chipsets. As a result, the interest of the processor and chipset giants is likely greatly diminished.
"This is something that has to go onto the memory module to be useful," Insight 64's Brookwood concurred.
MetaRam comes with a fairly deep pedigree in servers. While at AMD, Weber oversaw the design and development of Opteron, the server chip that pulled AMD out of the doldrums and gave the company a rare, temporary lead over Intel in performance.
Investors in MetaRam include Andreas Bechtolsheim, chief architect at Sun Microsystems; Khosla Ventures; Intel Capital; and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Weber pointed out that Bill Joy is the Kleiner partner participating in the deal. Thus, three of Sun's four founders--Vinod Khosla, Bechtolsheim, and Joy--are investors.
MetaRam's basic technology was devised by Surest Rajan. The company received its initial funding in January 2006, which is a fast turnaround in the semiconductor world.
"We took on a fairly simple job and we wanted to do it in a year," Weber said. "I picked a problem we could do with 20 guys."
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Panasonic claims memory first

This April Panasonic will launch what it claims is the world's first 32Gbyte SDHC memory card. This Class 6 specification mobile storage release will, the firm says, be capable of storing up to 12 hours worth of High-Definition (HD) video.

The new memory card, which has the model name RP-SDV32GG1K, is described as perfect for those wanting to move HD content from PC to PC, as well as for users looking to store content from AVCHD High Definition video recording.

The 32Gbyte card can record approximately 12 hours of 1440 x 1080i High Definition video in HE mode and approximately four hours of 1920 x 1080i full High Definition video in HA mode.

"This memory card redefines the concept of electronic data storage devices, as the amount of data it can store is just enormous; something that people would not have imagined a few years back," said Mr. Yasuo Kimoto, Panasonic Marketing Middle East's product manager.

The arrival of Panasonic's 32Gbyte memory card, which is expected to cost around $700, boosts the company's line-up to six models.
SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity, or SD 2.0) is an extension of the SD storage standard that allows capacities in excess of 2Gbytes. While SDHC products utilize exactly the same form factor as SD, the SD 2.0 standard in SDHC uses a different memory addressing method (sector addressing rather than byte addressing), thus taking the maximum storage possible, in theory at least, up to 2048Gbytes. SDHC cards work only in SDHC compatible devices.

Netscape Navigator laid to rest

AOL has released the final update to its 14-year old Netscape Navigator browser.

Netscape Navigator was first launched in 1994 under the name ‘Mosiac Netscape 0.9' and just one year later secured more than 80% of the online browser market. However, Internet Explorer, which was launched by Microsoft in the same year, overtook Netscape in three years. Today, Netscape is said to account for less than 1% of the browser market.

In the firm's official blog, Tom Drapeau, director of AOL's Netscape brand stated: "Users will see the following major upgrade notice, released as Netscape 9.0.0.6. When the upgrade is accepted and run, the following notice will appear, denoting the end of support date and the recommendations of Flock and Firefox."

UAE users however will have to opt for Firefox or another alternative as access to Flock.com was blocked in the country earlier this month.

Drapeau added that Netscape 9.0.0.6 is patch-equivalent with Firefox 2.0.0.12, the browser version Mozilla released earlier this month to fix a number of vulnerabilities.
Meanwhile, faithful Netscape 9 users can continue to use the browser by hitting the ‘Remind me Later' button, followed by the ‘Stay with Netscape' button.

At the end of 2007, AOL announced it would stop supporting Netscape on February 1, but decided to give the browser a one-month extension to ensure smooth migration to Firefox and Flock.

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Microsoft 's net storage service takes off

Microsoft's storage service, Windows Live SkyDrive has graduated from beta status and is now offering users up to 5Gbytes of free online space.

SkyDrive - which initially offered 1Gbyte of space - provides users with three options for storing and sharing files. Users can choose to have sole access to their files, to share them with people they select, or to make them available to anyone on the web.

Windows Live users can set permissions for each person they share with, either allowing them to add and modify files, or only to view them. Microsoft revealed users must be signed into the firm's online network with their own Windows Live login and password to view and edit files."

Starting today, you will be able to access all your personal files wherever you are and share them effortlessly with family, friends and colleagues," stated Jonathan Hulse, group director of Windows Live.

According to Microsoft, 5Gbytes equates to approximately 1,000 songs, 30,000 Microsoft Office documents of average size, or 30,000 digital photos at a resolution of 1200x1200. The firm has imposed a 50Mbyte limit on each file uploaded.
Apart from offering 4Gbytes of additional storage, Microsoft officials claim that the new release fixes a numbers of beta bugs, and offers users a "faster and more reliable" service.

SkyDrive supports Windows and Mac PCs, and can be used with Internet Explorer 6 and above and Firefox 1.5 and higher.

A number of industry analysts believe this is part of Microsoft's bid to effectively compete with Google and acquisition target Yahoo in the internet services arena. Yahoo has its own online storage service called Briefcase, which offers users up to 25Mbytes of space.

Meanwhile, there are rumours that Google will soon launch its own online storage service, which netizens have christened 'Gdrive'. Google however is yet to confirm or deny this rumour.

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Hackers turn Google into vulnerability scanner

The hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow posted a software utility, called Goolag Scan, that uses Google to automatically find pass words and other vulnerabilities. The tool enables any script kiddie to crack like a pro. The utility comes with about 1,500 pre-fab searches categorized as things like "vulnerable servers," "sensitive online shopping information" and "files containing juicy information."

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Microsoft: Vista SP1 will break these programs

Microsoft has published a list of programs that will not work or that will suffer from reduced functionality after the installation of Vista Service Pack 1.
The list of programs consists mostly of security applications, such as Trend Micro Internet Security 2008. However, programs such as The New York Times Reader application also feature on the list. Users are advised to install updates from the application vendor to fix the problem.
"Windows Vista Service Pack 1 contains many security, reliability, and feature updates for Windows Vista," the company said. "A program may experience a loss of functionality after you install Windows Vista SP1. However, most programs will continue to work as expected after you install Windows Vista SP1."
The list is not considered to be comprehensive, and Microsoft has asked users who encounter problems with other applications to first restart their PC and, if they still encounter problems, to install a newer version of the program or contact the software vendor.
Without SP1 incompatibilities, Windows Vista is already facing an ingrained perception by enterprise users of incompatibility with old systems, said Joseph Sweeney, an analyst at Intelligent Business Research Services.
Issues of back compatibility require regression testing on old applications, making any deployment very painful to do in one install, he said. "In theory, you only have to fix it once, and you should be able to deploy it across your whole environment, but many organizations do not have a highly automated deployment."
The problems with SP1 will only make backward-compatibility issues worse, he said, especially since many companies have been waiting to deploy the operating system until the release of the service sack.
The positive thing about Vista, he said, has been that organizations are stepping back and looking at their deployment methods. Because the desktop market is maturing, the trend would have happened anyway, he said, but Vista's problems have acted as a catalyst.
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IE8 goes on an Acid2 trip; beta due in first half of 2008

Since getting Internet Explorer 7 out the door in October 2006, Microsoft has kept mostly silent on the topic of its successor. That changed today, as Microsoft made a couple of significant announcements about IE8.
Internal builds of Internet Explorer 8 have passed the Acid2 test, a complex rendering test designed to demonstrate a browser's compliance with the letter of the HTML and CSS specs. Currently, Mac OS X browsers OmniWeb and Safari and cross-platform Opera pass the test, as do the betas of Firefox 3.0.
Although Acid2 has become a significant benchmark for standards compliance, it's not really a true standards compliance test. In 2005, IE developer Chris Wilson referred to it as a "'wish list' of features" the test's authors would like to have supported in a browser. Still, it's an important milestone for the IE and its developers, as the application has been criticized over the years for its lack of compliance with standards—including by Opera in its antitrust complaint filed with the European Commission last week. (In fact, if the release version of IE8 supports Acid2, Microsoft could argue to the EC that it is at least as standards-compliant as the competition.)
A pre-beta build of IE8 passing the Acid2 test
Better interoperability and support for web standards are high priorities for the IE8 team, according to IE general manager Dean Hachamovitch. "The key goal (for the Web Standards Project as well as many other groups and individuals) is interoperability," wrote Hachamovitch on the IEBlog. "As a developer, I'd prefer to not have to write the same site multiple times for different browsers... With respect to standards and interoperability, our goal in developing Internet Explorer 8 is to support the right set of standards with excellent implementations and do so without breaking the existing web." A laudable goal, to be sure, but the millions of users still on IE6 ensure that the problem won't be going away anytime soon.
The IE team has to walk a fine line between tight support for W3C standards and making sure sites coded for earlier versions of IE still display correctly. Hachamovitch notes that web developers have had to develop sites with two audiences in mind: IE users and everybody else. "We have a responsibility to respect the work that sites have already done to work with IE," he says. Microsoft's goal with IE8 is a browser that renders the same pages that work in IE6 and IE7 while making "the development of the next billion pages, in an interoperable way, much easier."
Microsoft will reveal more information on IE8 during its annual MIX Conference in March 2008. The company does plan on releasing a public beta of IE8 some time during the first half of 2008. If the development cycle for IE7 is any indication, the final version of IE8 should ship 9 or 10 months after the first beta arrives.
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Why does my cell phone make screechy noises when I place it near my computer?

This sounds like a case of electromagnetic interference (or EMI), which is what happens when radio waves emitted by one device cause undesirable behavior in another.
Virtually every piece of electrically powered equipment acts as a radio transmitter, whether it is supposed to or not. That's because the rapidly changing electric currents running through these devices naturally radiate electromagnetic waves. This is an inevitable by-product of using electricity to do useful things, and it is analogous to the clanking and clattering sounds that mechanical devices make as they work. Computers are particularly "noisy" because they rely on rapidly changing currents to act as clock signals that coordinate their calculations.
Just as changing electric currents radiate radio waves, radio waves induce electric currents in conducting materials. This is how radio receivers detect the signals transmitted by radio stations. The same effect is used to heat pots and pans on inductive cooktops. Inductive coupling can also have undesirable consequences, however.
One explanation for the phenomenon you describe is that your computer unintentionally emits radio waves in the range of frequencies reserved for cell phone communications, typically around 800 megahertz (MHz). If the signal coming from your computer is strong enough, your phone could mistake it for a cell phone transmission. Computer noise, however, does not contain the sort of information that your phone's onboard computer is programmed to expect. Thus, it responds to the resulting cascade of communications failures by creating a series of audible alerts.
Another explanation involves a deeper connection between your two devices. In addition to its other components, a cell phone has an audio amplifier that drives its speaker, and the radio waves emitted by the computer may induce currents in the wiring of the amplifier itself. The resulting audio output then would reflect what your computer is doing at that moment but would sound to a person like random squeaks and squawks.
There is no way to stop electrical devices from generating radio waves. The only way to prevent EMI is to keep spurious radio waves under wraps. Most electronic devices are housed in cases designed to trap these electromagnetic waves; they are made of metal or have a coating that conducts. Holes in the cases and thin spots in the coating allow some radio waves to leak out. Usually the leakage is too small to have any effect except right near the source, where it is most intense. And that is why your cell phone only acts up when it is right next to your computer.
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UAE users face part-ban of Facebook

Elements of the popular social networking website Facebook could be blocked to UAE net users next year as part of the telecoms regulator's rollout of its forthcoming new Internet Penetration Policy (IPP).The country's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) claims that this detailed policy will liberate web access by more specifically defining which types of online material can be accessed and which should be blocked to surfers."The penetration policy will be liberalised in the sense that it will be more specific," a TRA spokesman told UAE newspaper Emirates Business 24-7. "We do not want to deny access to websites that are social portals and encourage cultural interaction in today's globalised world. At the same time it has to be done without losing our identity, traditions, ethics, morals and culture."According to the TRA, the likely changes will open up many sites - or at least sections of those sites - that are currently blocked in the UAE.However the spokesman added that sections of social networking websites, such as Facebook's dating-related sections (or, more specifically, downloadable applications) would be banned, which is not the case at present.
The spokesman also took a swipe at the site-blocking approach of the UAE's second telco, du, which he suggested was using a less advanced software system to apply the TRA's Telecom Law than its competitor Etisalat."Before the creation of the TRA it was more or less a case of whatever was banned on television - and sometimes more - was blocked on the internet by Etisalat. We looked at international best practices and approved the software used by Etisalat to censor the internet. Now a new player, du, is in the market and it also uses software that automatically bans certain websites. But du's software is not as effective so we will introduce the penetration policy to include or exclude content," he was quoted as saying.
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How to protect your USB stick

One business recently learned a tough lesson about data security. On a trip to Barcelona an employee’s backpack was stolen. Inside was a USB stick on which he had stored not only his personal passwords and banking information, but also confidential business information, such as network access keys, security codes to the building and pending contracts. Now his personal security and financial holdings company are at risk.

Everything that makes USB flash drives so convenient – their ease of use, high capacity, portability and low cost – are exactly what makes them vulnerable. That’s because they can be easily misplaced, “borrowed” or stolen.
Built in HP protection
High-speed USB is now a standard for modern flash drives, with capacities up to 16 GB not uncommon. Such quick and efficient access to, and portability of, information means you need to take security seriously.

Part of the HP ProtectTools security offering is the Personal Secure Drive. Built into our desktops, notebooks and workstations, this feature allows you to encrypt the data on your USB sticks using the TPM embedded security chip. Data protected using PSD can then only be read on the system that encrypted the data. And if your USB stick is lost or stolen, the information it contains cannot be accessed.

Another feature designed to secure confidential data is Device Access Manager. This allows you to protect your systems so that unauthorised users cannot insert USB sticks and copy data onto them.

Encryption solutions from companies such as SafeBoot allow for the encryption of data on USB drives. These drives can be used on any system if the user is authenticated. These solutions are portable, yet secure.
What you should be doing
Here are some measures you can take yourself in order to protect the data kept on your USB sticks.
Separate business from pleasure
Keep business and personal information separate. If you have a USB stick that you use to move personal files, such as music or photos, between computers, think twice before putting confidential business information on the same stick. These files are probably backed up on a home computer. Even if you lose them permanently, you’re not putting your business at risk. With sensitive business data, such as client information, you should take extra measures to ensure the safety of your information. Instead, have a dedicated business USB stick that you’ll handle with as much care as the sensitive information it contains deserves.
Protect it with code
Data encryption, or scrambling the data, is still a simple and smart way to protect data. Microsoft recommends creating and encrypting a folder to store the files that need extra protection. All files created or moved to this folder will be automatically encrypted. In Windows® XP and Windows® 2000, right click on the folder and choose Properties. In the General tab, click Advanced and check box “Encrypt contents to secure data.”
Protect it legally
Create a text file warning and load it on all company USB drives. The file should include a legal disclaimer stating that the information on the drive is confidential and protected by law.
Protect it physically
Many manufacturers are creating USB flash drives that also provide a physical security component. Some now come with biometric fingerprinting for authentication. Others have combination locks like a padlock or shred the data after a certain number of failed password attempts. Remember, not to leave your USB drive lying around. If the data on it is highly sensitive, lock it in a safe or at least a locked drawer when not being used or transported.
Access a secured network instead
Another way to reduce the risk of losing USB sticks is not to use them for data that is confidential, and cannot be replaced. For confidential data, a safer idea may be for companies to allow employees to access the company network remotely through a secure network. This way they do not have to carry confidential files around on a USB stick when they need to work off-site.
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Microsoft posts new Windows XP SP3 build for public download

February 19, 2008 (Computerworld) Two weeks after it last handed a new build of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) to several thousand invitation-only testers, Microsoft Corp. today posted that version for public downloading.
"We're broadening the availability of the release candidate in order to receive further user feedback prior to the release of Windows XP SP3," a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail Tuesday afternoon. "Windows XP SP3 RC2 will be made publicly available today at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time."
Download XP SP3 RC
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Symantec carries out audit on Middle East operation

Security software vendor Symantec has carried out an audit of its operations in the Middle East to ensure that its internal channel management policies are being followed.An auditing team from within the company recently visited the region to scrutinise Symantec's business practices in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which form the backbone of its operations in the Middle East. Symantec has an extensive two-tier partner network in the region, selling though more than 600 resellers and a large number of retail accounts.The company is understood to have strict procedures for the way that business is conducted through partners as indirect transactions make up virtually all of its sales.Symantec has declined to comment on the results of the audit, but Andrew Douglas, VP for emerging markets at the vendor, said the investigation was a "routine" measure that has also been carried out in a number of countries outside the Middle East."We have procedures within our regions where we have investigators come and check certain areas," he revealed. "I also have an audit team going into South Africa just to check our channel processes and make sure that we are seen to be fair and trading in the correct manor with our partners. It is routine and nothing untoward," he added.
Douglas recently visited Dubai to review the company's business plans and cement its strategies for the forthcoming financial year. "We have put four new channel heads into MENA and we are looking to recruit and expand further in our channel with regards to our services," he said. "We are on the look-out for new services partners to help us grow and work hand in hand in developing our opportunities here in the region."Symantec says the drive to recruit new partners has already begun and it is looking to have established partnership deals in place in time for the start of its financial year at the beginning of April.

Vista SP1 rolls up 551 bug fixes

No wonder the Wow had so much trouble getting started. By Microsoft’s own count, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 rolls up 551 separate hotfixes, in addition to 23 security updates rated Important and already delivered via Windows Update. A handful of those hotfixes were previously released via Windows Update, but most were available only to corporate customers and OEMs.
If that sounds like a lot of bugs to be stomped in one service pack, well, 551 is a pretty big number. But it’s not out of line with the number of fixes that went into the two service packs for Windows XP. The first XP service pack was delivered in September 2002, about 14 months after the original RTM date; its list of fixes included updates from 24 security bulletins and 297 hotfixes. XP Service Pack 2 covered a longer period of time (23 months), but still, its list of fixes was staggering, with updates identified by 60 security bulletins and a whopping 666 (no, I did not make that number up) fixes. (If you want to do a fair comparison between the first service packs for Vista and XP, you need to exclude a few fixes from the Vista list. Back in 2002, XP Media Center didn’t yet exist, nor did Tablet PCs, Windows Sidebar gadgets, or the .NET Framework, just to name a few categories that collectively include more than 60 fixes in Vista SP1 but weren’t needed in XP SP1.)
In Microsoft’s release notes for SP1, the list of updates is stuffed into a barely formatted table that goes on for 35 mind-numbing pages (out of a total of only 55 pages). Each entry in the list consists of a Knowledge Base (KB) article number, the article title, and a general category name. Now, the categories that Microsoft’s developers use to categorize KB articles might make sense in Redmond but they aren’t very helpful from a Windows user’s point of view. So, over the weekend, I imported that list into Excel and went through it article by article, breaking it down into categories of my own devising. Here’s the list:
Fixes Category
75 Internet Explorer
41 Sleep/Hibernation & Power Management
38 Storage
35 Hardware and Drivers
35 Networking
28 Desktop and Shell
25 Printing & Scanning Technologies
25 .NET Framework, Data Components, Development Tools
24 Setup, Deployment, Backup, and Activation
24 Windows Media Center
23 International/Localization
20 Computer Management, Administration, and Tools
19 Application Compatibility
19 Multimedia
16 Performance and Reliability
16 Startup/Shutdown
13 Time Zone/Daylight Saving Time
13 Windows Media Player and Related Technologies
12 Security 12 Remote Access, VPN
8 IIS and WebDAV issues
7 Wireless Networking
7 Offline Files
6 Windows Mail and Web-based Software
5 Windows Sidebar and SideShow
5 Windows Portable Devices

Personally, I wasn’t surprised to see Internet Explorer at the top of the list, nor was I shocked to see how many separate issues addressed problems with sleep, hibernation, and power management.
I’ll look at a few of these categories in more detail later this week, probably starting with the many fixes for sleep/hibernate/power issues. Which categories are you most interested in?
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Microsoft slams the door on Vista pirates

It does seem that Microsoft hasn’t been successful in closing off all the hacks that allow non-genuine copies of Vista SP1 to pass off as genuine ones. After a few minutes of searching the darker corners of the Internet and a few seconds in the Command Prompt I was able to fool Windows into thinking that it was genuine.

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How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free

Are you a member of Facebook.com? You may have a lifetime contract.
Some users have discovered that it is nearly impossible to remove themselves entirely from Facebook, setting off a fresh round of concern over the popular social network’s use of personal data.
While the Web site offers users the option to deactivate their accounts, Facebook servers keep copies of the information in those accounts indefinitely. Indeed, many users who have contacted Facebook to request that their accounts be deleted have not succeeded in erasing their records from the network.
“It’s like the Hotel California,” said Nipon Das, 34, a director at a biotechnology consulting firm in Manhattan, who tried unsuccessfully to delete his account this fall. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
It took Mr. Das about two months and several e-mail exchanges with Facebook’s customer service representatives to erase most of his information from the site, which finally occurred after he sent an e-mail threatening legal action. But even after that, a reporter was able to find Mr. Das’s empty profile on Facebook and successfully sent him an e-mail message through the network.
In response to difficulties faced by ex-Facebook members, a cottage industry of unofficial help pages devoted to escaping Facebook has sprung up online — both outside and inside the network.
“I thought it was kind of strange that they save your information without telling you in a really clear way,” said Magnus Wallin, a 26-year-old patent examiner in Stockholm who founded a Facebook group, “How to permanently delete your facebook account.” The group has almost 4,300 members and is steadily growing.
The technological hurdles set by Facebook have a business rationale: they allow ex-Facebookers who choose to return the ability to resurrect their accounts effortlessly. According to an e-mail message from Amy Sezak, a spokeswoman for Facebook, “Deactivated accounts mean that a user can reactivate at any time and their information will be available again just as they left it.”
But it also means that disenchanted users cannot disappear from the site without leaving footprints. Facebook’s terms of use state that “you may remove your user content from the site at any time,” but also that “you acknowledge that the company may retain archived copies of your user content.”
Its privacy policy says that after someone deactivates an account, “removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time.”
Facebook’s Web site does not inform departing users that they must delete information from their account in order to close it fully — meaning that they may unwittingly leave anything from e-mail addresses to credit card numbers sitting on Facebook servers.
Only people who contact Facebook’s customer service department are informed that they must painstakingly delete, line by line, all of the profile information, “wall” messages and group memberships they may have created within Facebook.
“Users can also have their account completely removed by deleting all of the data associated with their account and then deactivating it,” Ms. Sezak said in her message. “Users can then write to Facebook to request their account be deleted and their e-mail will be completely erased from the database.”
But even users who try to delete every piece of information they have ever written, sent or received via the network have found their efforts to permanently leave stymied. Other social networking sites like MySpace and Friendster, as well as online dating sites like eHarmony.com, may require departing users to confirm their wishes several times — but in the end they offer a delete option.
“Most sites, even online dating sites, will give you an option to wipe your slate clean,” Mr. Das said.
Mr. Das, who joined Facebook on a whim after receiving invitations from friends, tried to leave after realizing that most of his co-workers were also on the site. “I work in a small office,” he said. “The last thing I want is people going on there and checking out my private life.”
“I did not want to be on it after junior associates at work whom I have to manage saw my stuff,” he added.

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Vista & Server 2008 SP1 due soon

The first software Service Pack (SP1) for Microsoft's Windows Vista and Server 2008 software platforms has been ‘released to manufacturing' and will be available for public download from next month.Speaking of the development on the company's official Vista blog, Mike Nash from its Windows Product Management group explained: "We have released Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista to manufacturing for our first set of languages - English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese."Service Pack 1 is a very important milestone because it addresses many of the key issues that our customers have identified with Windows Vista over the last year both, directly and through programs like the Customer Experience Improvement Program," he added.With Service Pack 1, Microsoft is claiming to have made major progress in improving the OS' performance, reliability and compatibility with third-party software applications and hardware peripherals.Admitting some of Vista's initial teething problems, Nash went on: "Some customers had issues finding applications that worked well on Windows Vista; others had problems finding the right device drivers for some of the hardware devices that they used. The reason for these issues is that in order to improve the reliability and security of Windows Vista, we made some important architectural changes to the system. While this caused some issues in the short term, in the long term we know that these investments will improve both the reliability and security of the customer experience on Windows."

Fake UAE Ministry website targets jobseekers

Jobseekers looking for employment in the UAE are being targeted by an online scam using a copy of the UAE Ministry of Labour's website.The scam, discovered by the Ministry of Education last week, attempted to lure overseas jobseekers with bogus online job adverts offering lucrative positions in the UAE. The victims were instructed to send personal details to a clone of the UAE Ministry of Labour site, www.uaeministryoflabour.tk and to an email associated with it.
According to a statement from the Ministry of Education, as reported by news agency WAM, the scam came to light when a US teacher approached the Ministry. The teacher had already applied online for a position, but had become suspicious when asked for a fee for a visa.
The Ministry statement revealed "unknown elements copied its website to establish contact with local and foreign applicants, particularly in the fields of employment. They issued what seemed to be authenticated employment forms to applicants, bearing forged signature of UAE Minister of Education Dr Hanif Hassan.
"Copying of websites, so that they appear to be official sites, while linking to a different, illicit email or web portal, is an increasingly common tactic used by fraudsters to steal personal data.
The clone website was registered with the domain suffix .tk, the registered domain of tiny Pacific island Tokelau, which allows the domain to be used by Dot TK, an Amsterdam-based free domain registration service.The site was still online on Friday, although access from the UAE has since been blocked by Etisalat.The Ministry of Education said that similar fraud attempts had been detected against other Ministries, although no further information was available.
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Yahoo rejects Microsoft's Bid

According to the WSJ report, the Yahoo Board believes that the $31 per share bid undervalues Yahoo as one of the web 3 major players. Likewise, it won’t even compensate for the risk that Yahoo would have to go through once it accept the original bid and later find itself reject by regulators.
And how much would Yahoo accept? Apparently, a bid not less than $40 per share is acceptable to Yahoo. But as others would like to believe, Microsoft is not vent on giving that much offer.
So, the questions everybody is asking as early as now, even though there was no official word from Yahoo yet is what is going to be Microsoft’s next move? That remains to be seen, and speculations are surfacing up on the web.
But what everybody seemed to have forgotten is what Yahoo’s next move is? How will it move on after something like this, happened? Microsoft has made its point-that Yahoo is on the losing streak and Microsoft is still all mighty and powerful and is capable of offering to buy Yahoo.
For Yahoo, it is definitely not good to receive an undervalued offer like this. Makes it even harder to bring the company into the right direction.

70 Horror, Blood and Gore Photoshop Effects and Brushes

When I was a kid, I was a compulsive painter of punched eyes, missing teeth and bloody scars on almost every magazine or newspaper photo I found.
Time passed by and I didn’t become a special effects makeup artist like Tom Savini or Rick Baker, but I still enjoy a nice horror movie with some decent gore and splatter effects.
Lately I’ve been noticing that many Photoshop artists are mastering the horror makeup techniques and believed that it was time to gather a nice (er, sort of…) list of Photoshop tutorials filled with gore, splatter and blood. Some previews have been blocked just because the final effect was too explicit. Have some fun with your photos, but don’t scare your kid brother too much, please.

Find it out

Internet chaos nears its end

Repair work on two broken undersea cables providing data services to parts of the Middle East and Asia should be completed by February 10, cable operator FLAG Telecom said on Thursday.The company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of India's Number two mobile operator Reliance Communications, said repair work on a section of the FLAG Europe-Asia cable between Egypt and Italy and the FALCON cable system off the coast of the United Arab Emirates was progressing steadily and was likely to finished by Sunday.Undersea cable connections were disrupted off Egypt's northern coast last week when segments of two international cables were cut, affecting Internet access in the Gulf region and South Asia, and forcing service providers to re-route traffic.A third undersea cable, FALCON, was reported broken between Dubai and Oman. FLAG said on Tuesday a ship had reached the location and repair work had started. (Reuters)

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Things to know before you download Windows Vista SP1

If you have a prior version of SP1 beta installed, you must uninstall it prior to installing RC. Use the Control Panel applet "Programs and Features" and select "View installed updates" from the top left of the task pane. Under Windows, look for "Service Pack for Windows (KB936330). Please wait 1 hour after uninstalling a prior build before installing the RC. The installer service needs to clean up and complete the uninstall prior to installing a later build. Failing to do this can result in installation errors for the RC version.
This is pre-release code and will change before the final release. Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate is for individuals, organizations, who are comfortable evaluating pre-release software. This pre-release software is provided for testing purposes only. Microsoft does not recommend installing this software on primary or mission critical systems. Microsoft recommends that you have a backup of your data prior to installing any pre-release software.
Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate is time-limited software. It will no longer operate after June 30, 2008 and should be uninstalled prior to that date. Note: After installation your desktop will show the text “Evaluation Copy”. This does not mean that your system is no longer “Genuine”. It means that you have installed a test version of software which is time-limited.
Support is through self-help and peer support via the Windows Vista SP1 forum and FAQ page. Assisted support (phone, email and online chat) is not available from Microsoft Support for this RC release of SP1.
If you install the Service Pack 1 Release Candidate, it is strongly recommended that you also plan to install the final version of Windows Vista SP1 when it is released in the first quarter of 2008. To do this, you will be required to uninstall this pre-release code.
You must have a genuine copy of Windows Vista installed on the computer prior to installing the Windows Vista SP1 update.

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Get the deployment, compatibility, and management tools you need for your Windows Vista rollout.

How Big is the Web? 155,583,825 Sites !!!

A January Netcraft survey estimates that there were last month 155,583,825 web sites on the internet. Two other interesting data points: 1) Growth had slowed from 5.4 million new sites in December to just 354,000 new sites in January; and 2) Apache serves, which have been in the lead but suffering a long decline has been surging lately, and at the expense of Microsoft.

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Top 100 Essential Mac Applications

An up to date list of the top 100 Apple Mac applications. These are the applications that every Mac should be installed with. Examples include the free to the not so free but all worth having for any Mac user.

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New Electronics Promise Wireless at Warp Speed

Company uses nanoscale metals to build faster radios to wirelessly process video and other massive data files
By Larry Greenemeier

Wireless networking technology will one day deliver high-definition video content and other large data files via the airwaves far faster than that information can be now be delivered over wired systems. But it will take major advances in the electronics that drive computer and radio-frequency systems to create such a high-powered wireless highway.

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Flag plays down net blackout conspiracy theories

Flag Telecom on Monday played down conspiracy theories over the recent damage to undersea cables that has seriously disrupted internet and international telecoms services across the region.Two intercontinental cables connecting Europe and Asia were cut off the coast of Egypt on Wednesday, followed by breaks in two more cables off the UAE coast on Friday. Flag owns two of the affected cables. The initial breaks affected internet access and international calls in Egypt, the Gulf and south Asia, while disruption resulting from damage to the latter two was centred around the Gulf region.The location of the breaks and short space of time in which they have happened has sparked fears the cables were intentionally damaged by the US and Israel to deprive Iran of internet access."It seems now to be way beyond the realm of coincidence that a further 4th critical international communications cable should break within seven days," one ArabianBusiness.com reader commented.

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Dubai builds $385mn Indian IT zone

Dubai’s Technology and Media Free Zone Authority (Tecom) is to begin work on a $385 million IT park in the Indian state of Kerala.Construction gets underway next month for the Kochi-based project, according to news agency AFP. IT consultant Joseph Mathew told AFP the foundation stone for ‘Kochi SmartCity' would be laid in the first week of November. “SmartCity will become a reality soon. The government will hand over 246 acres of land to Tecom, promoters of the project” Mathew said.Tecom and Kerala cemented an agreement to develop Kochi SmartCity in May, following three years of negotiations.The project aims to create 90,000 new jobs within 10 years in a state where four million under 35s are unemployed among a population of 31.8 million.

Based on the same model as Dubai Internet City and Dubai Media City, it is expected to attract around $350 million worth of investment.The Kerala government is to provide water, power and a four-lane highway to the development, AFP reported. The government will have a 26% stake and three seats, including the chair on a 10 member board.Around 70% of space will be devoted to IT related activity, with the remainder used for commercial, residential and recreational purposes.SmartCity is a joint venture between Tecom and Sama Dubai, part of Dubai Holding.

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Gapminder

Gapminder is a non-profit venture developing information technology for provision of free statistics in new visual and animated ways. Goal: enable you to make sense of the world by having fun with statistics. Method: turn boring data into enjoyable interactive animations using Flash technology.

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Internet problems continue with fourth cable break

Internet services in Qatar have been seriously disrupted because of damage to an undersea telecoms cable linking the Gulf state to the UAE, the fourth such incident in less than a week.Qatar Telecom (Qtel) said on Sunday the cable was damaged between the Qatari island of Haloul and the UAE island of Das on Friday.The cause of damage is not yet known, but ArabianBusiness.com has been told unofficially the problem is related to the power system and not the result of a ship's anchor cutting the cable, as is thought to be the case in the other three incidents.It is expected to take at least "a few days" to fix, according to one person with knowledge of the situation.The damage caused major problems for internet users in Qatar over the weekend, but Qtel's loss of capacity has been kept below 40% thanks to what the telecom said was a large number of alternative routes for transmission.

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Intel and Micron develop "world's fastest" NAND -- kiss SSD random write lag goodbye

How do 200MBps reads and 100MBps writes in a storage device sound to you? Pretty sweet if you ask us. That's the upper spec for Micron's new highspeed 8Gb (Gigabit not Gigabyte, kids) SLC NAND co-developed with Intel on a 50-nm processes node. Once slapped together in an SSD, you can expect performance to easily outshine any existing SSD or mechanical drive on the market while easily kicking the SSD bugbear -- random read/writes -- to the curb. The rub, of course, is that SLC NAND is more expensive than MLC so you can expect to pay dearly for that performance. Watch for the speedy Micron flash to pop in cellphones, camcorders, SSDs (and pretty much every portable consumer electronics device out there) sometime in the second half of 2008 -- sampling now to manufacturers.

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Sending Limits - GMail

In an effort to fight spam and prevent abuse, Google will temporarily disable your account if you send a message to more than 500 recipients or if you send a large number of undeliverable messages. If you use a POP or IMAP client (Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, e.g.), you may only send a message to 100 people at a time. Your account should be re-enabled within 24 hours.
If you communicate with the same group of people on a regular basis, you might be interested in Google Groups.
If you send a large number of undeliverable messages, we suggest verifying your contacts' email addresses. It's also important that everyone you are sending mail to is willing to receive it.
Learn more about best practices for sending a large amount of mail through Gmail.

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How Spam Works

Most of us get spam every day. Some of us get a little, and some of us get a lot, but if you have an e-mail account it is always there. For example, this morning, here's one that came to my inbox:

Obviously this is spam, yet it made it through the spam filters and I opened it because the subject line made it unknowable whether it was spam or not.
Spam is incredibly annoying, especially in large quantities. If you have a public e-mail address you can receive hundreds of spam messages for every legitimate message that arrives. Even with good filters, some of the spam makes it through. And filters can sometimes delete messages that you really do want to receive. Spam is free speech run amok.
Where does all of this spam e-mail (also known as "unsolicited commercial e-mail") come from? Why is there so much of it? Is there any way to stop it? In this article, we will answer these questions and many others as we take a dive into the sea of spam.
Spam is a huge problem for anyone who gets e-mail. According to Business Week magazine:

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How Firewalls Work

If you have been using the Internet for any length of time, and especially if you work at a larger company and browse the Web while you are at work, you have probably heard the term firewall used. For example, you often hear people in companies say things like, "I can't use that site because they won't let it through the firewall."
If you have a fast Internet connection into your home (either a DSL connection or a cable modem), you may have found yourself hearing about firewalls for your home network as well. It turns out that a small home network has many of the same security issues that a large corporate network does. You can use a firewall to protect your home network and family from offensive Web sites and potential hackers.

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A Hidden Browser on Windows Calculator

When I was in college, I remember certain areas in the library were restricted from Internet surfing. These computer stations were to be used to browse through the library’s database of books, magazines, journals, but not the net. Unfortunately, if there were a bunch of students around, I would need to wait for an Internet PC to be vacated or seek the world wide web somewhere else.
Recently I saw this cool trick at Bare Choors, which allows you to surf the Internet on computers that do not have an Internet icon for you to log on with.
The easy step by step video below illustrates how to use the Windows Calculator to surf the web in a restricted area. Who would have ever thought that this harmless calculator program can be used to pass the the restrictions and browse the net with! I’m not 100% sure, but this trick may not work on Vista.
If you ever get on a computer that is restricted from Internet browsing, try out this hidden access trick. Please note that the web address does requires the “http://” prefix (eg. http://www.walyou.com).
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