Thanks so very, very much for your kind help. My wife is thrilled. Needless to say, so am I. And our thanks to CyberTechHelp for such a great and generous service - sher07 
Computing News | This Week
Posted by: Tweaker
Date added: 17:21 Thursday, 2nd July 2009
Source: Computer World News
Jailbreaking an iPhone leaves users vulnerable to attack by stripping away most of the handset's security protections, a security researcher warned Thursday.
"If you care about security, don't use a jailbroken iPhone," said security researcher Charlie Miller, speaking at the SyScan security conference in Singapore on Thursday.
Jailbreaking is a term used to describe the process of stripping away the protections that prevent a user from installing applications on an iPhone that have not been digitally signed by Apple. Jailbreaking tools have been popular among users in the U.S. and elsewhere who do not want to be tied to a specific operator, or who want to add software or capabilities to the phone that Apple doesn't offer.
The process removes around 80% of the security protections built into the phone's software, making it more vulnerable, Miller said.
Overall, the stripped-down version of Mac OS X used in the iPhone makes it more secure than computers running the full version of the operating system, Miller said.
Many capabilities contained in the full version of the operating system, like support for Java and Adobe Flash, are not available on the iPhone. In addition, the iPhone doesn't support many of the features contained in PDF files, which have proved to be a fertile source of Mac OS X vulnerabilities. This gives attackers fewer options when looking for vulnerabilities to exploit, he said.
In addition, iPhones are limited to running applications that have been digitally signed by Apple, which means that an attacker cannot simply install and run their own software on the handset. The iPhone also has hardware protections for data stored in memory.
Jailbreaking an iPhone disables these two security functions, making the phone more vulnerable to an attack, Miller said.
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Posted by: Tweaker
Date added: 17:19 Thursday, 2nd July 2009
Source: Cyber Tech Help
Mozilla will patch the just-released Firefox 3.5 in the next few weeks to stamp out several bugs that went unfixed in the final version of the browser, the company said Tuesday.
Firefox 3.5.1, which Mozilla intends to deliver in mid-to-late July, will include fixes for at least three bugs and "topcrashes," the term the company uses to describe the frequently-reported crashes. Like many applications, Firefox asks users to report crashes by displaying a prompt after the browser goes down.
"[The] goal of this release should be a quick turnaround that fixes topcrashes and bugs we almost held ship for," Mozilla said in notes published after a weekly status meeting.
One of the topcrashes scheduled for a fix involves TraceMonkey, the new, faster JavaScript engine that debuted in Firefox 3.5. At least one of the bugs was fixed a week before Mozilla released the final code on Tuesday.
The quick patch is not unusual for Mozilla. The company did the same thing last year, when it issued Firefox 3.0.1 four weeks after shipping Firefox 3.0, 2008's update.
Users downloaded about 6.5 million copies of Firefox 3.5 in the browser's first 36 hours, according to Mozilla's real-time counter. Although that's a far cry from the 8.3 million copies of Firefox 3.0 Mozilla delivered in the first 24 hours of its availability last summer, it's a pace that, if sustained, would exceed the 11 million copies of Safari 4 that Apple claimed were downloaded in its first three days.
Firefox 3.5 can be downloaded in Windows, Mac and Linux editions in 58 different languages from Mozilla's site; current users can update by choosing "Check for Updates" under the "Help" menu.
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Posted by: Tweaker
Date added: 20:34 Wednesday, 1st July 2009
Source: Information Week News
Apple's work on the iPhone's operating system continues. Weeks after the release of version 3.0, it has given developers a software development kit for the 3.1 version of the software.
The company just released the 3.0 software to the public two weeks ago, and it brought features such as cut and paste, a push-notification system, and Spotlight search to iPhone and iPod Touch owners. The updated firmware was also preloaded on Apple's iPhone 3GS, which sold over a million units in its debut weekend.
The iPhone SDK 3.1 was delivered to developers Tuesday, and it offers a handful of new features. One of the appealing factors of the iPhone 3GS is its ability to record, edit, and upload videos with its 3.2-megapixel camera. The latest firmware will enable users to trim videos without losing the excess parts, and will give third-party applications access to the video editing software.
Another new aspect of the 3.1 SDK is the ability for the iPhone 3GS to use voice control functionality over Bluetooth. This means users will be able to use various Bluetooth headsets for voice dialing, or to give audible commands to play music. Additionally, developers said the new SDK has various small user interface improvements, and more tactile feedback when moving applications.
The ability to send MMS messages is switched on by default with the 3.1 SDK, but users in the United States still cannot send these messages because AT&T does not support them yet. The second-largest carrier said it will offer this service later this summer at no additional cost to customers with text messaging bundles.
Apple has not said when it expects future versions of its iPhone software to be made available to the public.
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Posted by: Tweaker
Date added: 20:29 Wednesday, 1st July 2009
Source: Computer World News
Microsoft will begin pushing Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) to enterprises next month, the company announced this week.
The decision to turn on IE8 updates will set businesses scrambling to either test the new browser or block the update, which replaces older editions such as IE6 and IE7 that many companies now require.
Microsoft will flip the switch for IE8 delivery via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) on Aug. 25, said Eric Hebenstreit, a lead program manager on the IE team. WSUS is Microsoft's most popular tool for deploying patches within businesses.
The IE8 upgrade will be made available as an "Update rollup," said Hebenstreit in a post to the IE blog on Monday.
That means systems running Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 or Server 2008 will automatically grab IE8, assuming the organization configured WSUS to auto-approve "Update rollup" packages.
Hebenstreit said that companies that don't want IE8 should turn off auto-approve for "Update rollup" packages in WSUS prior to Aug. 25, then on the next sync, decline the IE8 update. They can later re-enable auto-approve.
Earlier this year, Microsoft said that it would start serving IE8 to WSUS users in July; Hebenstreit did not give a reason for the month-long delay.
Microsoft released IE8 in March, but waited a month before pushing the new browser to end-users via Windows Update (WU), the primary update service for consumers and smaller businesses. Before that, it had released a toolkit to block the new browser from reaching machines through WU; the toolkit, however, does not block IE8 upgrades pushed by WSUS or Systems Management Server (SMS), another Microsoft patch manager.
The toolkit, which is still available from Microsoft, will stymie IE8 deployment indefinitely. According to Web metrics firm Net Applications, IE8 accounted for 7.6% of all browsers used in May, the most recent month for which data is available. Although Net Applications typically issues new browser market share numbers the first of each month, it has delayed June's data pending a review for what it said was "significant variations in browser and operating system statistics."
In other upgrade news from Microsoft, the company said yesterday that it had released the remaining 31 language-specific versions of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) to Windows Update.
Microsoft posted Vista SP2 for download in May, and after a delay, began pushing the English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish editions to users via Windows Update on May 26.
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Posted by: Tweaker
Date added: 18:16 Tuesday, 30th June 2009
Source: Cyber Tech Help
Mozilla
has officially released Firefox 3.5 today as predicted earlier this week.
Firefox 3.5 is the first major revision since 3.0 was released about a year ago. The new version sports a faster rendering engine, stability enhancements and a new javascript engine. It will also include support for the most widely-used elements of HTML 5 that allows for offline data access, enhanced web graphics and multimedia playback without plug-ins. The Firefox logo has also had a small revision as well.
Mozilla has been showing different 3.5 features within a 35 day period, and has also shown the new tools developers can take advantage of in the new version.
The new version was originally going to be 3.1, but was renamed to 3.5 later to reflect a greater scope of changes than what had originally been planned.
What's new in 3.5?
According to Mozilla's release notes:
- Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
- Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey javascript engine.
- The ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
- Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
- Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
- Support for new web technologies such as: HTML5, 'video' and 'audio' elements, downloadable fonts and other new CSS properties, javascript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.
Download: Firefox 3.5
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Posted by: Tweaker
Date added: 13:06 Tuesday, 30th June 2009
Source: The Inquire
WHILE APPLE FANBOYS struggle with the reality that the fruit themed toymaker's latest Iphone 3GS sometimes gets hot enough to discolour the plastic, Wired thinks that the problem might be due to the battery.
Wired said that there have been only a few complaints, but Aaron Vronko of Rapid Repair, which performs teardowns of Iphones and Ipods, said overheating is likely an issue due to faulty battery cells.
He is predicting that the overheating issue could result in massive recalls of Iphone 3GS units, since the dodgy batteries are from very large production runs and this could mean that thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Apple's latest technogeek fetish devices might turn out to be faulty.
Part of the problem is that Apple had planned for a nice little revenue stream by refusing to let punters replace their own Iphone batteries, hardwiring the things so that you have to take the unit in to the Apple store for battery replacement.
So, if the Iphone 3GS battery goes wrong like this, Apple will have to recall and replace the whole unit.
Apple PR is not saying anything at the moment, as we would expect it to do at this point. What it will be doing is hoping that not enough people experience any battery problems, so the issue can be safely dealt with without having to make any public announcement or recall.
Back in 2006, Apple had to recall its Ibook and PowerBook G4 notebooks because battery cells provided by Sony were causing some batteries to explode.
And in August 2008, Apple issued a recall for defective Ipod Nanos, which had caused three fires in Japan.
Meanwhile Apple fanboys have been rushing to share with the world their technical expertise on the white French phone discolouration. Their expert opinions have been that it must have been left out in the sun too long because they claimed there is nothing inside the Iphone that would leave that shape.
However, Vronko told Wired that the pictures of discoloured white iPhones he has seen reveal the outlines of the battery, something we would think an 'engineer' would know. So we can't help but think that Apple fanboy 'engineers' defending Jobs' Mob on websites are probably kids who own a Gameboy and think they are technology wizards. µ
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Posted by: Tweaker
Date added: 13:04 Tuesday, 30th June 2009
Source: Information Week News
Swedish tech company Global Gaming Factory X said Tuesday that it has reached an agreement to acquire controversial file sharing outfit The Pirate Bay for about $7.7 million.
Global Gaming said it would introduce legitimate business models to Pirate Bay's Web site, which had become a haven for illegal file sharing. Pirate Bay's Swedish founders in April were ordered jailed for one year and fined $3.6 million.
"We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site," said Global Gaming CEO Hans Pandeya, in a statement.
Padeya said Pirate Bay draws enormous amounts of Internet traffic but added that it needs to adopt legitimate business models to stay in operation.
"The Pirate Bay site is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world. However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies that requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary," said Pandeya.
"Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers need faster downloads and better quality," he added.
The deal could see The Pirate Bay evolve in a manner similar to that followed by Napster. A nexus for illegal peer-to-peer swapping several years ago, Napster was acquired by a string of legitimate vendors that instituted pay-to-play business models on the site.
Also Tuesday, Global Gaming said it agreed to acquire Peerialism, a Swedish company that specializes in the development of p2p file sharing technology. The move is not unrelated to Global Gaming's buyout of The Pirate Bay.
"Peerialism has developed a new data distribution technology which now can be introduced on the best known file sharing site—The Pirate Bay," said Peerialism CEO Johan Ljunberg, in a statement.
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Posted by: Tweaker
Date added: 15:32 Sunday, 28th June 2009
Source: Neowin News
Microsoft have announced that their veteran web-based messenger client will become unavailable from this Tuesday, June 30. The service has offered access to their popular instant messaging network through a web browser for the past five years.
Since earlier this year a newer replacement service for MSN Web Messenger has been available as part of Windows Live Hotmail, featuring direct integration with the email interface and your contact list (known as Windows Live People). This will now become the only officially supported web-based client for accessing the Windows Live Messenger network, apart from the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit which allows developers to integrate messaging controls into their own websites.
The new web messenger service is available directly from your Hotmail inbox and acts as another location for Messenger's multiple points of presence (MPOP) feature, meaning that you can sign into the web service whilst still signed into the Windows Live Messenger client on one or more computers. Once signed in, it allows you to easily see which of your contacts are online and if the sender of an email is in your contact list then you can even see if they are available to chat when reading their message. If your Live ID doesn't use Hotmail for its email (as it is hosted on another domain) then you can still access the web messenger in a similar way through Windows Live People.
MSN Web Messenger is one of the last remaining MSN branded web applications still available, with other online services such as Hotmail and software such as Messenger itself having moved having moved to the Windows Live brand several years ago, so it's good to see this outdated service finally being retired. As Ars points out, Microsoft Money, Microsoft Encarta and Windows Live OneCare are also all set to be discontinued from June 30.
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Posted by: Tweaker
Date added: 15:28 Sunday, 28th June 2009
Source: PC World Magazine
Is the Apple iPhone 3GS having overheating issues? I've seen some reports circulating on the Web today that indicate some handsets might indeed be affected. And I have my own tale to add to fray.
The story began at French site Nowhereelse.com, with a piece that showcases a discolored white iPhone 3GS whose owner says the discolorations came from the device noticeably heating up during use of the GPS over 3G wireless. This tale and image has circulated today at other U.S. gadget sites, including Gizmodo and Engadget.
For me, I had noticed from day one that the iPhone 3GS appeared to have similar heat issues to iPhone 3G: The phone's back got warm during use. I thought it curious that handset still got warm in many of the same areas as with the 3G, in part because, Apple had specifically told me that the components inside were reconfigured as compared with the 3G model.
I didn't think too much of this heat thing -- I recall the lower inch of the T-Mobile G1 getting toasty, too, when I had tested that model -- until last night. That was the first time I had used my 16GB iPhone 3GS while it was plugged into the wall outlet.
I don't recall how long I had been using the handset, but I was making my way steadily along The Oregon Trail, thank you. And at some point, I became aware the handset had become very hot. Very, very hot -- not just on the back, but the entire length of the front face, too. I was using a game, and then later the Web browser for reading the news about Michael Jackson, all over a Wi-Fi connection while plugged in. And in those circumstances, well...toasty doesn't even describe how surprisingly hot it got. It was too hot to even put the phone against my face. No discoloration to report, though; I have the black handset, and didn't see any effects.
After my own experience, I wondered if this was an isolated case, or if this was a sign of something bigger. The Nowhereelse.com blog appears to confirm that this may not be an isolated case. Anyone else noticing heat issues?
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Posted by: Tweaker
Date added: 15:24 Sunday, 28th June 2009
Source: Information Week News
Apple has reversed itself on the 'Hottest Girls' app for the iPhone. The company briefly allowed the software into the App Store on Thursday, but then removed it after the developer started showing pictures of topless women.
Availability of the app made it appear that Apple may have loosened its strict prohibitions on adult content in the store. But Apple pulled the software, and made it clear its policies are still the same.
"Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content," Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told Macworld.
Neumayr said the developer of "Hottest Girls" added the nude pictures after the application had been approved and distributed and was asked to remove the content before the application was taken down.
Many apps in the iPhone store depict scantily clad woman, but the latest program was the first offered on the store to show nudity. Apple's latest version of the iPhone and iPod Touch software enables developers to build an age-verification process in applications.
Nevertheless, Apple has the final say on what goes into the App Store, and some developers have complained that the company's vetting is unfair or arbitrary. For example, Apple blockedSouth Park and Nine Inch Nails apps for explicit language, but briefly allowed a baby-shaking program that critics said depicted child abuse.
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Posted by: Tweaker
Date added: 14:26 Saturday, 27th June 2009
Source: Neowin News
Micro Center is offering Windows 7 pre-orders for $10 less than the pre-order standard prices.
There is a catch though, you have to go visit one of their 21 US locations to obtain a coupon between today and Sunday. However, once you've obtained the coupon you can then return between October 22 and November 4, after Windows 7 will hit general availability, and purchase your copy of Windows 7 for the reduced price. Meaning you don't have to actually "pre-order" right now, just obtain the coupon and purchase later.
Sounds like a great deal, if you can get into one of their stores this weekend.
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