Aquariant Technologies RSS Feed

One of These Things is not Like the Other

2010-12-09T09:12:44-06:00

This guide provides a number of tips you can use to speed up your phone, and while not every tip will apply to you or your phone, you should find at least a few tips in here that will. Whether you've rooted your phone, overclocked, flashed a new ROM, or none of the above, you'll be able to take advantage of a number of the tweaks below to get your phone from sluggish and glitchy to quick and smooth. ...But what strikes us is how wrong it is to be bold enough to suggest to a user that they - in essence - stop using their Android device as a computer. ...Never have we seen a suggestion coming from Apple that enhances performance through the suggestion that you quit using your iOS device for it’s intended purpose. ... We continue to be shocked and amazed at the crap people will wade through when there are much easier solutions to be had. Then again, we must shake our heads in disbelief every time we hear how ‘open’ Android is when not every Android device can stream Netflix, yet every iOS device does.

AT Does ACTC

2010-11-01T12:15:43-05:00

We are pleased to announce Aquariant Technologies now has an ACTC on staff. We stand prepared to solve all your Apple problems today!

Another Adobe Security Flaw

2010-10-28T12:25:33-05:00

Adobe today confirmed that hackers are exploiting a critical unpatched bug in Flash Player, and promised to patch the vulnerability in two weeks. ..."There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild against Adobe Reader and Acrobat," said Adobe in its warning. The company said it's seen no sign that hackers are also targeting Flash Player itself. ...Security experts have regularly criticized Adobe Flash's security, with some questioning the company's decision to integrate the media player's capabilities within the almost-as-popular Reader. ...Until a patch is available, users can protect themselves from active attacks by deleting the "authplay.dll" file that ships with Reader and Acrobat. ...Dumping authplay.dll, however, will crash Reader and Acrobat or produce an error message when the software opens a PDF file containing Flash content.

We Want Schmidt's Head !

2010-10-22T15:53:27-05:00

Google Inc said its "Street View" cars around the world accidentally collected more personal data than previously disclosed, and that it was changing its privacy practices. ...Google's Street View cars, which are well known for crisscrossing the globe and taking panoramic pictures of the city's streets, collected the data. ...It disclosed the snafu in May, but said at the time that the information it collected was typically limited to "fragments" of data because the cars were always moving. ...Google said it has appointed Alma Whitten as director of privacy for engineering and product management, and that the company was adding new internal procedures requiring engineering product managers to maintain a privacy design document that records how user data is handled. ...Except for an incompetent engineer or thirty, we would not have any clue that Google was building the tools to invade privacy at will. And if it was bad in the spring, and worse now, what would it be like if we could force full, honest, and transparent disclosure from Google?

Mostly Dead

2010-10-22T09:24:14-05:00

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs this week introduced a slimmer version of the MacBook Air, an ultra-portable laptop without a traditional hard disk drive, he said it represents "the future of notebooks." ...Beginning with MP3 players, NAND flash technology in the form of solid state drives (SSD) has been devouring the consumer hard drive market from the bottom up as prices go down. ...And, while hard disk drives will still populate servers and storage systems in corporate data centers for years to come, there will be fewer of them as solid state drives cannibalize the top tiers of data storage there. ...They are more rugged than hard-drives, faster, silent, smaller and have far lower power-consumption than hard drives. ...Truly, it has been said if you want to know what the rest of the industry will be doing next year, look to Apple this year. ... After all, even when Apple held a funeral for Mac OS 9, it took some Mac developers years to get the hint.

You're Doing It Wrong

2010-10-19T17:18:06-05:00

In reality, we think the open versus closed argument is just a smokescreen to try and hide the real issue, which is, “What’s best for the customer – fragmented versus integrated?” ......we are confident that it will triumph over Google’s fragmented approach, no matter how many times Google tries to characterize it as “open.” ...So the more time that passes, the more I am convinced that we’ve got a tiger by the tail here, and this is a new model of computing which, you know, we’ve already got tens of millions of people already trained on with the iPhone. The moral of the story is that Apple just owns the portable computing market, and for anyone to catch Apple would require them to become... well, better than Apple and that just isn’t going to happen. ...Q: You are the tablet market right now… This is the second time you’ve come on to talk about competition, and I’m just wondering if much like Apple encroaching on RIM’s monopoly in enterprise, if you think Apple is gonna be able to sustain share growth for tablets amid some of those new competitive headwinds. ...The same Flash Jobs called - in essence - a steaming pile of crap that will never see the light of day on an Apple portable device :

iPhones in Spaaaaaaace!

2010-10-18T09:12:21-05:00

Going where no other smartphone has gone before, the iPhone has now conquered orbital space, and in high-def : NEWBURGH, N.Y. - Luke Geissbuhler and his 7-year-old son Max thought it might be fun to send an iPhone into space. ...After doing some low-altitude testing, the father-and-some team put the phone and along with an HD camera to record the flight inside a hand warmer and attached it to a weather balloon. The Geissbuhlers released the balloon in Newburgh, New York. When Luke wanted a tracking device he turned, of course, to the iPhone. Because nothing says high-tech and space exploration like the iPhone.

It Got Worse

2010-10-11T09:08:30-05:00

The company caused a stir this morning when an icon for the popular mobile game was spotted in a remote corner of its Windows Phone site, hinting that it would be available for the company's new mobile platform, set to be unveiled in New York tomorrow morning. ...But Rovio Mobile, the maker of the game, quickly responded with a tweet: "We have NOT committed to doing a Windows Phone 7 version," it said. ...Please allow us to translate : We don’t want to slam the door by suing Microsoft, because it may be possible to make a buck off them. We want to keep our options open, but we want great terms, so we are using this as leverage in negotiations for what we hope is going to be a really big check. ...After all, you can see for yourself Microsoft doesn’t even bring out the top software for Windows Phone 7, even when they completely own the IP behind it. ...Call us crazy, but if that is the biggest name Microsoft has, then Windows Phone 7 might be a bigger bomb than Castle Bravo.

Worse?! How Could I Possibly Make it Worse?!

2010-10-08T08:48:53-05:00

A report posted in the "Bits" blog of The New York Times said Ballmer recently met with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen to talk about Apple's control of the cell phone market and how Microsoft and Adobe could work together to fend off the iPhone maker. ..."Just as when an individual who is not vaccinated puts others' health at risk, computers that are not protected or have been compromised with a bot put others at risk and pose a greater threat to society," he said in a blog post. ...If Microsoft truly wants that model, then perhaps Microsoft should have to prove it has a secure OS in the first place. ...We would agree to this insanity on one condition : AdobeSoft, by force of law, is completely unshielded from liability when a “healthy” computer is blocked, and it pay a minimum $10,000 fine directly to the owner of the computer for each instance. If Microsoft is at all confident in its ability to organize and run such a system, then let them put up the bond and finance a court specifically for adjudicating the ‘mistakes’ Microsoft’s track record has shown they will make. ... Short of that, everyone who cares a single whit about freedom and security should let it be known they will not stand for such an intrusion by a company more known for its bungling than true security.

Adobe on Security

2010-10-06T08:58:11-05:00

Funny, despite all their protestations about security, it would seem Adobe isn’t laughing anymore either : BREAKING ITS MONTHLY PATCH CYCLE, Adobe has issued emergency fixes for its Reader and Acrobat software products. ...The firm released fixes for twenty three vulnerabilities that exist in its software packages, issues that could have affected machines running Windows, Macintosh and Unix. ...The vulnerabilities, which affect a long list of versions - deep breath, Adobe Reader 9.3.4 and earlier versions on the Windows, Macintosh and Unix platforms, and Adobe Acrobat 9.3.4 and below on Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Reader 8.2.4 and below and Adobe Acrobat 8.2.4 and below - could have let a remote attacker take control of systems or make them crash. ...Can we please stop pretending that Adobe even lives in the same zip code as security, let alone the same neighborhood? We are of the mind the next time anyone claiming to be a ‘security expert’ uses the words “security” or “productivity” or “stable” in conjunction with the words “Adobe” or “Flash” or “Reader”, they be rolled in Alpo and thrown to a pack of starving poodles.

Wherein We Trash InfoWeek...Again.

2010-10-04T09:43:17-05:00

Isn’t this precisely the same people who have been telling us for decades that Macs were bad in IT because strength came through homogenization? ...Now we are about to drop the nuclear bomb which obliterates the entire premise of this article : enterprise-level tech is all about the lock-in and competitive advantage. ... And if you believe for even a single minute when Amazon contracts out for a system there isn’t a nuke-proof NDA stronger than Superman that specifically prevents any use other than for Amazon... well, we want to talk terms with you on a gently-used bridge. ...To be fair, some of these extensions do indeed have value, but silly arguments between vendors, like the Apple/Adobe tiff over Flash, only serve to irritate customers and limit end-user productivity. ...So if some wonk is telling you the tools you use - and Enterprise-level IT is routinely being commanded to integrate - are bad, you must begin to wonder what they are selling. ...So if someone is telling you to abandon a documented secure platform, then you should be very, very afraid of what they are selling as a replacement.

The Killer That Wasn't

2010-09-28T09:04:14-05:00

Research In Motion Ltd., whose BlackBerry smartphone rose to prominence on Wall Street, is now targeting business customers with a tablet computer to compete with Apple Inc.’s iPad and add a fresh source of revenue. ...“RIM needs a tablet device because it’s necessary for all the device makers to have a multiplatform strategy to compete in the long term,” said Scott Sutherland, an analyst at Wedbush Securities Inc. in Los Angeles. ...RIM may sell 6 million PlayBooks in the first year because the tablet may be better suited for business users and “productivity-centric consumers” than the iPad, Mike Abramsky, an RBC Capital Markets analyst in Toronto, said in a note today. ...We have talked to CEO’s who have used iPads and iPhones and they are of the mind if they were going to use anything with a smaller screen than the iPad, it’s right to the iPhone. ...By promoting the PlayBook’s compatibility with Flash, “absolutely they’re trying to differentiate some of the advantages of going with the PlayBook platform,” said Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw in San Francisco. ...Add to this we don’t know how much the PlayBook will cost, we don’t know it’s media capabilities (RIM isn’t saying), and that if you are not in range of a wi-fi network you can only connect to the internet if you also own a BlackBerry device -

3... 2... 1...

2010-09-25T09:35:55-05:00

We didn’t want to have to do this but someone is buying themselves a lot of positive PR to offset a movie which, as far as we can tell, mostly tells the truth. ...Zuckerberg announced his biggest expenditure to date: a $100 million grant aimed at improving public education in Newark, in partnership with Cory A. ...If that were true, then Facebook, Inc. would have a P/E rating 7.5 x more than Google, Inc., and that is a highly dubious statement to make. And it really is air at this point because nobody - let us repeat that because it sounded vaguely important NOBODY - outside of Facebook, Inc. really knows what Facebook, Inc. has for revenue. ...As a very wise person once educated us - the only time a stock can’t go lower is when it is at zero. ...Personally, we believe before the government is allowed to touch one cent of the money or “leverage it” (read : borrow against it) Mark Zuckerberg should be forced to commit to a surety bond guaranteeing the $100 million dollars.

Unbelievable

2010-09-22T12:12:18-05:00

Michael Walkley, their new Apple specialist, the two paragraphs that jumped out at us were the ones that talked about the company's ability not just to innovate, but to turn those innovations into cash. ...For example, he writes, Apple sold 17 million mobile handsets in the first half of 2010, compared with 400 million handsets sold by Nokia (NOK), Samsung and LG. Yet it pulled in 39% of the industry's profit during that period, more than the 32% earned by the world's three largest handset makers combined. ...Perhaps last - we are not sure because of the enormity of the first two shocks - is the sheer disparity, the magnitude of the difference between Apple and the also-rans. ...But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get. We are pretty sure Ballmer would sell his soul, the souls of his entire family, and every soul of every Microsoft employee to have the “2 or 3%” Apple has right now.

ABANDON SHIP !!

2010-09-22T08:49:29-05:00

AT&T Chief Randall Stephenson recently spoke at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York City, Stephenson stated that while the iPhone was a major success for AT&T, two-thirds of iPhone purchases came from previous AT&T customers and were not likely to switch to another network just because the iPhone opened up over there as an option. ...More to the point, Stephenson says that the iPhone 4 was such a huge success that they’ve locked in a huge chunk of their existing customers into new two year contracts. ...In all likelihood, even if the numbers are correct, the people alleged to be “jumping ship” are probably not iPhone customers and probably do not represent all that much profit to AT&T in the first place. If anything, AT&T will probably be throwing parties (at least out of public view) when these low-profit customers bolt for the door and infest Verizon. ...AT&T Inc. was raised to “outperform” at Credit Suisse Group AG, which said Verizon Communications Inc.’s likely introduction of the iPhone in the first quarter won’t hurt AT&T’s business as much as investors fear. ...Missing from all of the school-girl natterings of the grab-as-many-eyballs-as-possible crowd is the biggest reason many users will not switch from AT&T, iPhone or no iPhone :

Don't Look, Ethel !!

2010-09-21T12:11:19-05:00

Nokia executive Anssi Vanjoki has heard all the chatter about pundits suggesting the world’s largest handset maker should ditch Symbian and MeeGo in favor of Android and he thinks that’s a bad idea. ...The outspoken Nokia executive said using Android would be like the Finnish boys who peed their pants for warmth – it would provide momentary relief but there would be bigger problems down the road. ...Vanioki doesn’t cotton to Android all that much, but still he may actually have a point. Vanjoki is no stranger to frank talk, as he has publicly said that the N97 didn’t provide a great user experience. I once had the pleasure of having dinner with the man and he told me that WiMax will be the BetaMax of its time. ...Vanjoki also doesn’t have to worry about offending the higher-ups at Nokia for much longer, as he has already announced that he will be leaving the company in about six months.

LALALALALALALA !

2010-09-16T09:04:07-05:00

“It’s something that will lead to broadening the customer base of the overall game industry,” Kazuo Hirai, president of Sony’s Networked Products & Services Group, said in an interview in Chiba prefecture, near Tokyo, today. “People who had never played a game before may enjoy it on their iPhone or Android cell phone and may want to play more at their home.” ...Because people who just spent a few hundred bucks getting a portable device that can do anywhere with them will then want to spend more, in a down economy, to be tied to one, single spot on the planet Earth. ...Demand for video-game consoles may be little changed at 52.3 million and shipments of portable units may drop 2.5 percent to 38.9 million, the El Segundo, California-based researcher said. ...Sony will be selling the “Move” controller, resembling Nintendo Co.’s Wii motion-sensing wand with a colored ball at the top, in the U.S. and Europe this month and in Japan in October. ...In a recent Nielsen survey, consumers expressed a variety of concerns about purchasing 3-D TV tech, not least of which are the obvious complaints: there’s not enough 3-D programming, and you have to wear silly 3-D glasses to view the content that is presented in three dimensions.

Somebody Should Have Warned Us!

2010-09-14T09:40:45-05:00

The vulnerability extends even to Adobe Flash on the Android mobile OS, supporting at least one of the reasons laid out by Steve Jobs for not allowing Flash on the iPhone and iPad. ...An Adobe spokesperson contacted me and shared that, "A critical vulnerability exists in Adobe Flash Player 10.1.82.76 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris and Android operating systems. ...In a nutshell, the critical flaw could be exploited to crash the affected system, or may even allow an attacker to gain access and control it to execute additional malicious software. There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild against Adobe Flash Player, but Adobe is not aware of any attacks exploiting it against Adobe Reader or Acrobat thus far. ...The Adobe spokesperson explained, "Adobe is actively sharing information about this vulnerability (and vulnerabilities in general) with partners in the security community to enable them to quickly develop detection and quarantine methods to protect users until a patch is available. ...In a nutshell, instead of doing all they can to prove Apple wrong, Adobe is even going so far as to off-load the problem on third-party security software, which one may-or-may-not have, to deal with the mess.

Who Put the Burr...

2010-09-14T09:06:28-05:00

Apple has quietly discontinued its free-case program for the iPhone 4 effective October 1, but says it will still provide a case to the "small percentage" of buyers who will need one due to the phone's "antenna attenuation issue." ...In a statement posted to its website on Friday, the company said "we now know" that the antenna issue is "even smaller than we originally thought." Because of the low incidence, Apple says, it's discontinuing the current program, which allows all those who buy an iPhone 4 until September 30 to order a free case for the device. ...The iPhone 4's reception problem, we found in earlier tests, can occur when your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side if the phone is being used in an area with a weak signal. ...In his July 16 news conference announcing the free cases, Apple chairman CEO Steve Jobs said the iPhone 4 dropped only about one call per hundred more than its predecessor, the iPhone 3G S, which remains available. ...But that fraud is compounded in the fact that CR does nothing to dispute Apple’s claim there is a smaller occurrence of the ‘death grip’ than reported initially.

Give Me Where to Stand...

2010-09-09T08:52:09-05:00

In this sense, of course, “little guidance” means “Apple expected the developers were adults, and as such had hired competent legal counsel to inform them precisely of the applications the contracts would allow developed”. ...Perhaps there was also the sense that “little guidance” meant “Apple rejected our app even though we didn’t read our contracts, and even after Apple gave us specific quotation from those contracts as to exactly why our app was disallowed”. ...If they read their contracts closely, and really just paid attention in general for the past five years, they would know, for example, Apple would not allow apps that would eat Apple’s lunch. ...So while is it true that Apple does carry some responsibility for not clarifying the rules early on, from our perspective Apple’s greatest crime may be they expected adults to be, well... rational adults. ...We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers. ...We can think of no more fitting punishment of ‘rogue’ developers than for them to create ‘crap apps’ using third-party tools, then have them be wildly successful to the point tech support costs consume the company whole.

Crazy for Apple

2010-09-04T10:03:47-05:00

Perhaps we are out of our league here, but it strikes us there is no marketing advantage greater than being on the #1 music store in the known universe. ...In fact, one could buy MySpace and turn it into your own personal promotion engine and not have the impact of a single day’s mention on the front page of iTunes. ...Ping has 17,000 concert listings provided by Live Nation, but MySpace's Ticketing & Events service -- introduced in April -- includes not only Live Nation but also several alternative ticketing vendors to provide a broader depth of concerts by the kinds of emerging acts that have defined MySpace's history. ...Assuming media reports are true, and Apple makes $0.35 off every song sold, then the math is elementary : $0.35 X 10,000,000,000 = $3.5 billion. ... Assuming for the moment (again, conservatively) that Apple makes a 20% margin on every one of the above hypothetical iPods, that means $29.80 profit on each of those 275,000,000 iPods. ...Now, we wouldn’t assume to know what your definition of ‘not a lot’ is, but $11.6 billion we would put in the ballpark of ‘oodles times gobs, raised to the power of lots’.

Wherein We Call PC World Out

2010-09-02T12:22:12-05:00

I've taken a brief test drive of Ping to see what it's about, but even before updating iTunes, I knew Apple's new social network was not for me. ...Some people have heralded Ping as MySpace's undoing, but MySpace still does one thing extremely well: it lets you listen to a handful of the artist's best or latest songs, in their entirety. ...But in essence the argument the PC World advances here is choosing between an all-you-can-eat buffet of water and broccoli and a smorgasbord where one can have sample portions of millions of tasty dishes. ...Also, people whose work computers don't have iTunes installed won't be able to use Ping for the great American pastime of slacking off at work. ...This presents a dilemma for using Ping: Ostensibly, it's a network for music discovery, so do I shut out the friends whose music I don't like, or follow everyone and try to filter out the awful stuff? ...But even if he did, had Jared been... oh, we don’t know... paying attention during the keynote he would have learned you can stop other people from seeing what you are up to.

Tack Us Down

2010-08-24T16:37:21-05:00

Aquariant Technologies is now found on Thumbtack.com !

Phish Monger

2010-08-24T09:11:44-05:00

iTunes accounts linked to PayPal have been targted in a scam with a number of users complaining that they have been cleaned out. ...Experts have told the BBC there is no security hole in iTunes or Apple servers and that it is most likely users have fallen for an online scam. ...We simply fail to see how someone being gullible and doing things not in their best interest is Apple or PayPal’s fault or responsibility. ...PayPal nor Apple would talk about the scale of the problem or how many people or accounts had been hacked. ..."If they don't aggressively sort this out, it can undo a lot of brand building and trust as they become this transaction hub for 150 million people's credit cards at last count." ...If we travel the lovely streets of New York City and fall prey to a game of Three-card Monte is it our bank’s responsibility to see to it we never lose our cash in that manner?

Apple Kills iPhone

2010-08-23T09:39:19-05:00

Apple has applied for a patent on technology that would allow it to detect unauthorized iPhone users and remotely terminate services to those devices. ...The patent, revealed last week, covers a range of uses that Apple considers to be illegitimate, including "hacking, jailbreaking, unlocking, or removal of a SIM card," according to the application, filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. ...We certainly agree with Apple’s ability to keep the iPhone running without interference from malware, adware, and other malicious software. It’s ability to do so is hampered by some random knucklehead getting in over their head in the murky waters of jailbreaking. ...We would love nothing better than to be able to do whatever the smurf we want with our iPhone. ...And one other big proviso : if anything you do - anything - impacts even one other iPhone then network access for that phone is shut down permanently.

What Did Microsoft Know

2010-08-23T09:10:24-05:00

Microsoft has known since at least February that dozens of Windows applications, including many of its own, harbor bugs that hackers can exploit to seize control of computers, an academic researcher said Sunday. ...At least 19 of the bugs can be exploited remotely, Taeho Kwon, a Ph. D. candidate at the University of California Davis, said in a paper he published in February and presented last month at an international conference. ...Had this been Apple it would have been big news; however, since it’s Microsoft this news has made barely a ripple. But we fully expect the rabidly anti-Apple press will be all over Apple if Safari and Quicktime aren’t patched tomorrow. We remind the reader : Microsoft knew for six months and did nothing.

Hand...Cookie Jar...

2010-08-16T16:49:52-05:00

TAIPEI—The parent of Kaedar Electronics Co., one of the six companies named in an indictment of an Apple Inc. employee as having paid kickbacks to land Apple orders, acknowledged Monday that Kaedar did pay brokerage commission to an intermediate trading company for its business with Apple between 2005 and 2008. But it said it is not sure if the arrested Apple employee is behind the intermediate trading company. ...Paul Shin Devine, a global supply manager at Apple, was arrested Friday on charges that he received some $1 million in kickbacks from six Asian suppliers. In a federal grand-jury indictment in the U.S. outlining offenses that include unlawful monetary transactions, Kaedar, along with five other companies, were said to have paid kickbacks to Mr. Devine for receiving confidential information that would let the companies negotiate favorable contracts with Apple. Well, we suppose that is one way to fund one’s retirement account albeit an illegal one.

Money, Money Everywhere

2010-08-16T16:23:47-05:00

Google is talking about fighting piracy, but perhaps the first thing they should focus on is actually making it possible for users to buy apps. ...You can only pay for apps in 13 out of the 46 or so countries where Android phones are available. ...If a large portion of the world’s Android users can’t even pay for apps, is it so strange that some of them turn to piracy? ...We seem to recall a lot of the same people oh-so-hyped about Android were pooh-poohing Apple’s screening process. ...Not to put too fine of a point on it, but even the true ‘wild west’ was eventually settled by responsible adults and lawlessness done away with. ...And not to belabor the obvious but consider that maybe - just maybe, mind you - Apple hit upon the business model that actually works, draconian though it may be to some.

Larry's Really, Really Mad

2010-08-13T14:45:39-05:00

Oracle declined to comment on Gosling's account of the Sun acquisition, but had this to say about its complaint: "In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property," said Oracle spokesperson Karen Tillman. ...Google dismissed the lawsuit as an unwarranted attack on the company and the open-source community. ...It was simply a matter of time before someone with deep pockets and a passel of ferret-faced shysters (thank you, Groucho!) ...But for Google to claim they are doing this for the ‘open-source community’ is just beyond the pale. They are doing it to protect the burgeoning cash-cow that is Android. Now if they were only as interested in protecting the rights of the copyright holders...

How Secure is Secure?

2010-08-07T09:18:46-05:00

Color us shocked at this report of what it takes to penetrate corporate security : ...And while they're at it, a little in-house training on social engineering wouldn't be a bad idea, either. ...Social engineering hackers -- people who trick employees into doing and saying things that they shouldn't -- took their best shot at the Fortune 500 during a contest at Defcon Friday and showed how easy it is to get people to talk, if only you tell the right lie. ...The Defcon and Black Hat security conferences are taking place in Las Vegas this week. The last we knew, most people in a corporation would give you their passwords for a Snickers bar. So you know that corporate security you paid a bundle for, thinking it was the best thing this side of Fort Knox?

The Pain! It Burns!

2010-08-06T17:39:03-05:00

Just in case you feel life is just missing... oh, extreme amounts of stress and challenges we present the (sorta) definitive guide on how to network a Win98se machine to a Mac running OS 10. ...THIS STEP IS NOT FOR MERE MORTALS AS YOU CAN REALLY MESS UP YOUR COMPUTER MUCKING ABOUT IN THE REGISTRY IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. ...2) Read and USE this KB article : How to back up and restore the registry in Windows. ...4) Go here to get a pictorial instruction on how you are going to edit your registry : Enabling NTLMv2 on Windows 95, 98, and ME Computers. ...UPDATE : If you should be copying files *from* the Win98 box *to* the Mac box, you may find the going easier if a folder is created on the Mac current user’s desktop. ... This folder may be the only one to be ‘seen’ by the Win98 box, and save a lot of frustration.

Just Stop It

2010-08-06T14:16:07-05:00

If there's one word that frustrates content creators, it's "inappropriate," but then how would you describe user-crafted StarCraft II maps harboring anti-Semitic symbols? ...Hold on though--what if the symbol were originally sacred to various eastern sects, including Hindus and Buddhists, and whose name (swastika) in its original Sansrkit form meant "lucky" or "auspicious"? ...It is bad enough there are sick, sick people in the world who are creating the maps, but to have a “news” outlet like PC World trying to defend the practice is just beyond the pale. Let us explain it to you guys at PC World : 6 million dead people mean using a swastika for any reason, at any time, is a bad thing and is *never* justifiable. We know the Nazis ripped it off, and we know it was a religious symbol, and in some parts of the world it still is. But to a great deal of this planet, Jew and Christian alike, it is one of the most hurtful and offensive things on this planet and so is sticking up for those who would use it.

Waving Goodbye

2010-08-04T17:31:33-05:00

"Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked," Senior Vice President Urs Holzle said in the blog post. "We don't plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site, at least through the end of the year, and extend the technology for use in other Google projects." Google Wave always struck us as a solution in search of a problem. As always, one must applaud Google for giving its engineers the freedom to roam and try new things; perhaps in this instance they roamed just a little too far afield. But on a more positive note, those rascally scamps did find a way for you to log into multiple GMail accounts in the same browser. So the week hasn’t been a total loss.

Microsoft Expecting

2010-07-30T12:18:28-05:00

Addressing an audience at the company's annual Financial Analyst Meeting in Redmond, Microsoft's COO, Kevin Turner, announced that a beta for Internet Explorer 9, the latest version of its popular browser, will be available fore download this September. ...We don’t know that we would go so far as to say IE8 is the ‘safest most secure’ browser. ... We do know that until Microsoft de-couples IE from the operating system, we still suggest running a browser that is not OS-dependent, like Safari or Firefox. ...The government has ruled out scrapping the use of Internet Explorer 6 on department computers, saying it will persevere with the bullet-riddled browser despite its high-profile vulnerabilities. ...Responding to an online petition with more than 6,000 signatures urging government departments to upgrade away from IE6, the government said such a move would be "a very large operation" potentially at "significant potential cost to the taxpayer". ..."It is therefore more cost-effective in many cases to continue to use IE6 and rely on other measures, such as firewalls and malware-scanning software, to further protect public sector internet users," reads the statement.

Google Getting Personal

2010-07-30T12:12:47-05:00

Ruh-roh, Rorge ! According to Lookout, a US-based security firm, more than 80 Google Android wallpaper apps were collecting mobile phone numbers and personal details, including unique subscriber numbers. Many of the apps also “dialled home” to their developers, transmitting unencrypted sensitive data back to remote servers. That can’t be good.

Apps for iPhone/iPod Touch

2010-07-30T12:02:01-05:00

Lost in the shuffle and hubbub of condemning Apple, Inc. for... well, just about everything is this : ...Oh, just an online marketplace for web applications (apps) to run on your iPhone / iPod Touch, without that mean ol’ Apple as a gatekeeper. Which is precisely what Apple has maintained all along - if you don’t want to go through the Apple approval process, just write a web app and put it out there. ...A bit weak in the selection department, at least right now. We are sure they will be offering more in the future. ... Someone is stepping up to try to make the web app market as vibrant as the iOS market.

Shake that Money-maker

2010-07-21T09:21:58-05:00

The Company posted record revenue of $15.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion, or $3.51 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $9.73 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.83 billion, or $2.01 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. ...Apple sold 3.47 million Macs during the quarter, representing a new quarterly record and a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 8.4 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 61 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.41 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. ...“It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year.”

Nokia and RIM Respond

2010-07-17T07:30:29-05:00

Apple's claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public's understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple's difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. ... Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple." ...Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. ...Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design."

"Jesus! At Least Half Our Customers Must Have Called In...

2010-07-16T16:00:16-05:00

Jobs said that to put the problems behind it, Apple would give free bumpers ...one we’ll give you a full refund for a bumper. ...iPhone 4 purchased through September 30.

We’ll re-examine this in September and ...September 30th a free case for every iPhone 4 and if you bought a bumper we’ll ...going to try to give a bumper to everyone.

No way we can make enough in a quarter. So what we are going to do is source some other cases and give users a choice of cases.

What a Shock

2010-07-15T08:58:31-05:00

Shocked ! Shocked we are ! This seems to be the only problem we have with Safari. It’s kind of spooky... It’s almost as if Steve Jobs was right!

Freakin' Awesome!

2010-07-13T09:26:56-05:00

This goes down in history as the best viral ad of all time, if only because we are major Gary Numan fans : Cars, played on actual cars! We are just geekin’ out here!

Surprise!

2010-07-08T09:34:18-05:00

Lenovo : Apple Missing Huge Opportunity In Chinese Market Apple to Lenovo : Surprise ! (Photo Courtesy of Xinhua) Lenovo : Ah, crap !

We're All Wireless Now

2010-07-08T09:26:10-05:00

Well, at least a good 59% of us are : Wireless Internet use grew by eight percent over last year with 59 percent of U.S. adults over 18 now using wireless devices regularly. That's according to new data from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. The Pew Center surveyed 2252 people asking them about their daily online habits and how often they access the Internet using a laptop's Wi-Fi or mobile broadband connection, or via a mobile device. The numbers jump to 84% when talking of those pesky 18-29 whipper-snappers. Why, in our day we had tin cans and string!

Big Business : We Heart the iPad

2010-07-07T10:29:39-05:00

It would seem the Big Business world has a serious man-crush on Apple and their iPad : Reservations aside, Wells Fargo saw how quickly the iPad might take hold amid businesses the weekend it was released. Finance executives of large companies -- those that generate more than $50 million in sales -- accessed corporate accounts with iPads, says Amy Johnson, a Wells Fargo vice president who works on the company’s online portal and mobile strategy.

Johnson used one of the iPads bought by Wells Fargo to demonstrate financial products during a May 13-14 conference. ...Sales representatives in 40 U.S. dealerships in late May began using iPads on showroom floors to order on-the- spot financing options for customers, says Andreas Hinrichs, vice president of marketing at Mercedes-Benz Financial.

The company now is considering doling out iPads to all of its 350 U.S. dealerships.

Shocked! Shocked We Are!

2010-07-06T11:05:27-05:00

What most readers don’t know is that the Berkman Center and many of its leading professors have financial and personal ties to Google and other tech companies—ties that are not disclosed when these academics speak or publish, and that I discovered after auditing a class with Zittrain. ...The class, it turned out, was funded by “a special grant from Microsoft,” according to Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer. ...After finding out about the Microsoft grant, I became more curious about how academic work about the Internet is funded, and began asking the Berkman Center and Zittrain for more details. According to a statement provided on June 10 by Berkman co-directors John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, Google is the center’s top corporate backer and its fourth-largest donor (Harvard University is fifth), providing roughly $500,000 over the last two years to support an overall annual operating budget of approximately $5 million. Palfrey and Gasser say the Berkman project receiving the most financing from Google, StopBadware, is “now a separate 501(c)(3) entity,” but when I spoke to the project’s director, Maxim Weinstein, in May, Weinstein said he still works in Berkman-leased office space in Cambridge and that actual plans to phase out StopBadware’s relationship with Berkman are “fuzzy.” ...Sorry, we stand corrected - there were no ethics being used in a clear-cut case of conflict of interest.

There's the Right Way...

2010-07-05T13:54:37-05:00

Software developer Jon Lech Johansen, who built an Android app for his music synchronization company DoubleTwist, published a blog post June 27 in which he noted that Google does not provide proper care and feeding for the Android Market.

"Unlike Apple's App Store, the Android Market has few high quality apps," Johansen wrote, citing a study from Larva Labs that Apple has paid out 50 times more money to developers than Google has.

Johansen added: "While the Android Market is available in 46 countries, developers can only offer paid apps in 13 countries. In addition, the price for foreign apps is not displayed in the user's local currency and developers do not have the option of customizing pricing by country.

...Johansen's biggest complaint is that the channel is loaded with trademark and copyright infringement, noting that there are some 144 spam ringtone apps clearly infringing copyright) that are being monetized through Google ads. Perhaps Apple had it right when they decided a ‘moderated’ approach was the best way to maintain a high-quality marketplace for applications.

An Amazing Short Movie

2010-06-28T16:35:01-05:00

This is an amazing short film :

Portable Hard Drive

2010-06-24T14:57:13-05:00

From the IBM Memory Hole comes this : ...It is an IBM hard drive from 1956, and it holds the equivalent of roughly two MP3s. It needed a forklift to move it (weight : over a ton!), and it could be leased - not bought - from IBM for $3,200 per month. In relative terms, that was a middle-class salary for a year at the time. Contrast that with your laptop, iPod, or iPhone, both in terms of cost and storage. We’ve come a long, long way.

We Have Specials !

2010-06-22T16:56:49-05:00

we will fix any problem on any Mac product or PC ...One low, flat fee makes your computer problems disappear ! For the full details, please drop by the store :
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Google Voice for the US

2010-06-22T16:51:13-05:00

From the Official Google Voice blog :

A little over a year ago, we released an early preview of Google Voice, our web-based platform for managing your communications. We introduced one number to ring all your phones, voicemail that works like email, free calls and text messages to the U.S. and Canada, low-priced international calls and more—the only catch was you had to request and receive an invite to try it out. Today, after lots of testing and tweaking, we’re excited to open up Google Voice to the public, no invitation required.

Ummm... if you are a phone company, this is the part where you go running screaming into the night. ;-)

New Mobile Me !

2010-06-19T11:53:50-05:00

But perhaps the most striking is the new “Find My iPhone” portion of the site : That is a major improvement over the old site. And we have found that when you use the “Display Message or Play Sound” function, there is almost no delay before the message pops up, and the sound plays. Your mileage may vary, of course, depending on your internet connection. ...See that blue dot at the center of the large blue-ish circle? ... So long as someone has Mobile Me, stealing an iPhone is a very unwise choice.

Acting Like Adults

2010-06-19T11:27:08-05:00

The average teenager sends 1,500 text messages each month, but when it comes to texting and driving, adult Americans are more likely than their younger counterparts to send messages from behind the wheel, according to a new study. About 47 percent of adults who use text messages said they have sent or read text messages while driving, the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported. A September 2009 study from the same group found that 34 percent of teenagers aged 16 and 17 reported the same behavior. Please don’t text and drive. It creates a hazard for yourself and others. We would love to see you as customers for a very long time to come.

Mario Soundtrack Played Live on Violin

2010-06-18T16:20:46-05:00

Very fine fiddling here :

Apple on Guard

2010-06-18T15:56:44-05:00

In particular, OS X 10.6.4 now provides better protection against a Trojan application called HellRTS, aka Pinhead-B, which has been turning up in fake iPhoto software being circulated by attackers.” ...If one is not downloading software illegally then one shouldn’t normally be troubled by “Pinhead-B”; even so, it is great that Apple is being proactive. ..."But what's curious to me is why Apple didn't announce they were making this update in the release notes or security advisory that came with Mac OS X 10.6.4. It's almost as if they don't want to acknowledge that there could be a malware threat on Mac OS X." ...The reality is that Apple doesn’t have to tell its users; truly, most of the Apple user-base has never heard of “Pinhead-B”. ... Apple did the heavy lifting to protect its users - even (ahem) less than honest ones - from not only themselves, but a threat borne exclusively of illicit software.

The New Mac Mini

2010-06-18T10:08:25-05:00

That is what the new Mac Mini from Apple looks like torn apart. It is an amazing feat of engineering that such a powerful computer could be assembled in such a small space. And don’t forget - Apple has added an HDMI port ! If you wish to know more about the Mac Mini, please stop in sometime and we will be happy to tell you more.