2009 January « Byte Into It – Computing and new technology

Byte Into It – 28 Jan 09

Wikipedia may tighten editing rules – web – Technology – theage.com.au
Wikipedia is considering tightening its rules on who can edit the online encyclopedia after vandals last week changed the entries of two US senators to erroneously report that they had died.
Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, proposed the change, which is being called “Flagged Revisions,” after the [...]

January 30, 2009
Categories: General, Shows, Web/New Media, Windows . . Author: byteintoit . Comments: Leave a Comment

Byte Into It podcast

Byte Into It - 11 November 2009 November 12, 2009

Phil Wales, Georgia Webster and the Fake Andrew Fish talking about the week's IT and Tech news (computing, new technology and headphones)This week the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and copyright, Rupert Murdoch vs the Internet, online journalism, community television digital forum, Brizzly, general social media jibber jabber, digital tattoo […]

Byte Into It - 04 November 2009 November 5, 2009

Mike Bantick, Sarah Stokely and Byron Scullin talking about the week's IT and Tech news.This week an Interview with Scotty Iseri, the creator of Scotty Got an Office Job, Secret copyright treaty leaks, NBN Summit, AFACT vs iiNet, Droid, Kristen Boschma, Apple news, Games and more...For show links and news check out the new Byte Into It blog at http://by […]

Byte Into It - 28 October 2009 October 28, 2009

Phil Wales and Mike Bantick talking about the week's IT and Tech news.Telstra, White House switching to open source, Google, Syntax DemoParty 2009, Google social search, Google Wave role playing, Netflix, Byte Into It webcast, eReaders, Borderlands and more...For show links and news check out the new Byte Into It blog at http://byteintoitlinks.blogspot. […]

Byte Into It - 21 October 2009 October 21, 2009

Phil Wales, Jay McCormak and Keren (In The Cloud) Flavell talking about the week's IT and Tech news.This week: Windows 7, The Cloud, Sidekick data debacle, eBook readers, Xtranormal, Google Fast Flip, Wordpress mobile view, Xmarks, Instapaper, 50 most annoying things on the internet and more...For show links and news check out the new Byte Into It blog […]

Digg Technology

Why U.S. Cell Phone Pricing Sucks November 15, 2009

Why? We like bills to be consistent, and we're risk-averse consumers. In short: It's our fault.

Top 5 Social Engineering Exploit Techniques November 15, 2009

Learn to pwn humans for fun and profit -- or simply learn these techniques so you can avoid being scammed.

5 Impressive Real-Life Google Wave Use Cases November 15, 2009

The Google Wave invite rollout extravaganza started more than a month ago. While in some respects the buzz around Google Wave has started to subside, the term

WTF? Ok, which Digg user is responsible for this? (PIC) November 15, 2009

I'm going to go with either a Digg user, or Seth Rogan on this one...a railing with phallic overtones.

Apple Wins Clone Suit November 15, 2009

Nearly a year and a half after a Miami company called Psystar announced that it was selling "Open Computers" pre-installed with Apple's (AAPL) Mac OS X Leopard...

Windows 7 Hacked (Again) for Keyless Activation November 15, 2009

Lo! Yet another Windows 7 activation hack appears. This one's a little more creative in that it doesn't require an OEM key at all, and instead bypasses the verification DLL completely.

HttpTorrents: Download Torrents Without BitTorrent November 15, 2009

Launched in early 2009, KickassTorrents is one of the fastest growing torrent sites on the Internet. The site has already conquered the hearts of many BitTorrent fans thanks to its user-friendliness, and just recently it partnered with httpTorrents to offer the option to download files over http.

World's most awesome cheap Chinese toy (VIDEO) November 15, 2009

My daughter earned this spinning top for selling wrapping paper in a school fundraiser. It plays the theme from Beverly Hills Cop and draws a laser circle on the floor

Hackers Post Private E-mails of Historian & Holocaust Denier November 15, 2009

A group identifying themselves as “anti-fascist hackers” broke into the web site and AOL e-mail account of controversial British historian and accused Holocaust-denier David Irving and obtained his private communications as well as attendee lists for his current U.S. speaking tour. The hackers posted his e-mail, personal information, and passwords.

Swiss privacy commissioner miffed, taking Google to court November 15, 2009

Google's Street View has pushed Switzerland's privacy commissioner over the edge. His organization plans to take Google to court over what it considers to be egregious privacy violations on behalf of Swiss citizens after months of trying to negotiate with the company.

The Register

The best mad scientist memoir of the year

Zuppero's zingy tale of space travel and bonkers weaponry Book review The best mad scientist autobiography this year, perhaps the only one, is Tony Zuppero's To Inhabit the Solar System. Better still, it's free and in time for holiday reading. It's a long but definitely not windy 391 pages.… The power of collaboration within unified comm […]

How can the storage industry prevent cloud bursts?

Out of sight, out of mind - but not out of harm's way Comment If you send your data to the cloud today you might be sure of a big surprise: it could vanish. SwissDisk users know this and T-Mobile Sidekick users know that Microsoft is quite capable of losing their data, too.… Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn't work

IT admins: we don't need no stinkin' servers

Cloud says shops want clouds Here's a newsflash. A company that rents server capacity for a living and who hosts such questionable customers as El Reg has commissioned a poll of IT shops and found that half of them wish they would never have to buy another server again.… Offloading malware protection to the cloud

Googlebooks re-deal won't let orphans go

Revised pact frees foreign works (UK excepted) Google and its fellow parties in the ongoing Google Book Search case have released a revised incarnation of their proposed settlement, as they attempt to win court approval of the controversial pact.… The power of collaboration within unified communications

Acer Aspire One D250 with Android

The first netbook with Google's OS Review Installing a second operating system on a PC is nothing new. Plenty of manufacturers have done so before, building a slimline Linux distro into their machines to provide a much more rapid start-up than Windows can manage: full access to the internet within seconds of pressing on power key.…

Researcher busts into Twitter via SSL reneg hole

Yes, it's a serious vuln A Turkish grad student has devised a serious, real-world attack on Twitter that targeted a recently discovered vulnerability in the secure sockets layer protocol.… Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn't work

Sarko caught short in Irish VIP footie box shocker

Green blog looks down on French prez Diplomatic relations between Ireland and France have crumbled ahead of the two nation's World Cup qualifying playoff, according to alleged letters between the two nations allegedly leaked to an alleged Irish soccer blog.… Offloading malware protection to the cloud

Hackers in keyless Windows 7 entry

Crack skirts MS code Hackers have found a way to bypass product activation in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to get free and illegal copies of Microsoft's latest operating systems.… Case Study: WhatsUp keeps Legoland turnstyles ringing

Cisco shareholders win say-on-pay

Shake tiny fists at big wallets Cisco shareholders have narrowly approved a right to shake their tiny fists at the company's executive payroll.… The power of collaboration within unified communications

Brocade not for sale, really

Klayko lays down law. In a tank top At Brocade's 6 November sales kick-off, CEO Mike Klayko said Brocade is not looking for a buyer.… What is your recession sales strategy?

Digg – Linux/Unix

Lenovo returns to the Linux desktop November 14, 2009

Lenovo will soon be shipping an ARM Snapdragon-based netbook using Linux.

Google Chrome OS To Launch Within A Week!! November 13, 2009

Google’s Chrome OS project, first announced in July, will become available for download within a week, we’ve heard from a reliable source. Google previously said to expect an early version of the OS in the fall.

openSUSE 11.2 Released! November 12, 2009

The openSUSE Project is pleased to announce the release of openSUSE 11.2. openSUSE 11.2 includes new versions of GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, the Linux kernel, and many, many more updates and improvements. In 11.2 you’ll find more than 1,000 open source desktop applications.

The State of Open Source on Firefox's Fifth Birthday November 11, 2009

Mozilla's success had demonstrated open source's potential. Pay attention, Microsoft.

Samsung launches bada open mobile OS, takes on Android November 11, 2009

Samsung today entered into the mobile OS arena with bada. The software, named after the Korean for "ocean," is designed to be open and will compete directly against Linux-based rivals like Android or LiMo. It will be based on universal standards and won't consider even core aspects of the OS off-limits.

GetDeb.net Repository Makes Newer Ubuntu Apps Easily Availab November 9, 2009

GetDeb's web site has long been the go-to spot for Ubuntu (and Debian, and Mint) users to grab the latest copies of software not yet released by their official repositories. Now GetDeb makes it even easier with a repository.

How Google uses Linux November 8, 2009

According to the article, a team of 30 Google engineers is rebasing to the mainline kernel every 17 months, presently carrying 1208 patches to 2.6.26 and inserting almost 300,000 lines of code; roughly 25% of those patches are backports of newer features.

Microsoft Linux: Ex-Microsoftie says it should happen November 5, 2009

A former Microsoft Research employee says that Windows 7 won't stop Linux from market domination. But he goes further. He thinks Microsoft and its customers would be better off if the company ditched Windows and instead built its own version of the Linux operating system.

Apache Software Foundation: 10 years an open-source leader November 5, 2009

It's been 10 years since the Apache Software Foundation was founded, creating what has become a series of communities filled with focused project entrepreneurs working on a laundry list of innovative efforts, one of which landed in the White House just a few weeks ago. ASF is celebrating the milestone this week at ApacheCon in Oakland.

Skype will be Open Source November 2, 2009

Skype (the famous Voice-Over-IP communication program) will be release under an open source license. The story started when Olivier FAURAX sent an email requesting Mandriva version of Skype. After a little chat with customer support , he got this replay " We understand that many users complain that there is no Mandriva version at present

Arstechnica Law and Disorder

Week in tech: Google Go(es) and AMD gets rejuvenated November 14, 2009

If it's Saturday, then it must be time to look back at the week's top stories on Ars. And so we shall. Go is a new programming language from Google that aims for performance that is nearly comparable to C, but with more expressive syntax and faster compilation. What it won't do, however, is liberate the coding masses from bracist tyranny. Goog […]

eric@arstechnica.com (Eric Bangeman)

Premier Chat 002 Wrapup: EFF transcript plus extra questions answered November 13, 2009

This past Wednesday, November 11, we hosted our third Ars Premier Chat. We'd like to thank again all those who participated and submitted questions. We asked our own Senior Editor, Nate Anderson to put together four questions for Fred to tackle which you'll find immediately below. If you're simply interested in reading a transcript of the live […]

clint@arstechnica.com (Clint Ecker)

Verizon to forward RIAA warning letters (but that's all) November 13, 2009

If you're a copyright owner who has gone to the trouble and expense of tracking down online copyright infringers, don't send warning letters to Verizon without striking a deal first; Verizon simply chucks them in the bin. Do a deal with the "big V" and Verizon is willing to forward warning letters on to its subscribers, but that's it […]

nate@arstechnica.com (Nate Anderson)

Swiss privacy commissioner miffed, taking Google to court November 13, 2009

Loved by many, Google's Street View feature remains controversial among users and consumer groups who are concerned about privacy. The latest uproar comes from Switzerland's Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), which claims Google hasn't taken sufficient measures to protect citizens' privacy and is now threatening […]

jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng)

FTC: BlueHippo pocketed $15 million, only shipped one PC November 13, 2009

How sleazy could any company be with an adorable blue hippo for a mascot? Baltimore-based BlueHippo provides the answer: really, really sleazy. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has had it with the company, which offers computers on layaway to those too poor to buy one outright. Buyers put up $99 to $124 in down payments, then make regular payments of $36 t […]

nate@arstechnica.com (Nate Anderson)

A single smartphone can DoS federal wiretaps November 13, 2009

As the telecommunications world went wireless and digital, the tried-and-true method law enforcement agencies used for wiretaps—splicing into the local loop—was in danger of becoming an anachronism. In 1994, Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which required telecommunications switches to incorporate a capacity […]

jtimmer@arstechnica.com (John Timmer)

SPDY: Google wants to speed up the web by ditching HTTP November 12, 2009

iljitsch.vanbeijnum@arstechnica.com (Iljitsch van Beijnum)

Teen's Facebook update gets robbery charges dropped November 12, 2009

Most of the stories we report that involve people being noticed for their Internet activities at home have an unhappy ending. In the case of New Yorker Rodney Bradford, however, a Facebook posting made from his father's apartment turned into his get-out-of-jail-free card. Though Bradford's story is being jubilantly reported as a victory for Interne […]

jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng)

Yes Men punk US Chamber of Commerce on climate change, sued November 12, 2009

In late October, a troupe of comedic pranksters called the Yes Men took on the United States Chamber of Commerce over its stance on climate change via a parody that was hard to distinguish from the real deal: a fake press conference, press releases, and a modified version of the Chamber's own website, hosted at a similar address. The Chamber responded b […]

jtimmer@arstechnica.com (John Timmer)

Premier Chat 002: Fred von Lohmann of the EFF November 11, 2009

Recently, we launched Ars Premier 2.0, our new and improved subscriber program that offers some fantastic new benefits for subscribers. Tonight sees our third insider-only feature: a live, moderated webchat with Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In his role as senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Fou […]

clint@arstechnica.com (Clint Ecker)

Ars Technica – Apple

Week in Apple: Software updates, jailbroken iPhone worms, and VESA November 14, 2009

Mac users got some love from Apple this week in the form of an update to Snow Leopard, as well as one for Safari. But it's not all good news for Apple fans--hackers are out to get jailbroken iPhone users and those running Atom-based hackintoshes will be stuck on Mac OS X 10.6.1. Read on to get the low-down. Mac OS X 10.6.2 out now along with Leopard sec […]

jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng)

iTunes Preview: something to do while loading iTunes links November 13, 2009

Apple has quietly leveraged the transformation of the design of the iTunes Store (using standard HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) to create "iTunes Preview." Now when clicking on an iTunes Store link, a preview page that echoes the iTunes Store page for a particular album will display in your browser while a re-direct attempts to load in iTunes. Previous […]