Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Here Comes Santa Claus Worm

New instant-messaging worm promises a picture of Santa Claus, but delivers a rootkit.

read more | digg story

How does Google Index?

An oft asked question, Google answers the steps it follows while indexing etc.

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Google, Time Warner strike $1 billion deal on AOL

Google will invest $1 billion for a 5 percent stake in Time Warner's America Online unit as part of a partnership that expands their existing search engine deal to include collaboration on advertising, instant messaging and video.

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NewsChannel adds Digg front page stories to website

Website for WWAY NewsChannel 3 in NC lists current Digg front page stories. First major media outlet I've seen do this. Sure others will follow.

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Yahoo to plug a security hole in Yahoo! Personals

Yahoo plans to tighten security on its dating site after a security expert uncovered a method for breaking into members' accounts.

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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Santa IM worm hits AOL, MSN and Yahoo

A Santa Claus worm is attempting to trick America Online, Microsoft MSN and Yahoo instant-messaging users into clicking on a file that delivers unwanted software to a victim's computer.

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MSN Messenger... down again

The MSN Messenger outage spilled over into a seventh day Monday, with many users of the free service complaining of inaccessible accounts, despite Microsoft's claims that most had been restored.


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AOL Coaxes Google to Try Busier Ads

It looks like one of the conditions of the AOL-Google deal is that Google open up its glorious white space to busy ads. From the article: "And the advertisers will not be limited to America Online, whose talks with Google prompted the change in policy, according to two executives close to the companies' negotiations."

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Computer Security Firm Hacked

Computer security firm, Guidance Software, reported that they got hacked and in turn exposed personal information of those involved. Via Tech Dirt

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Texas to get broadband over its power lines

Two Texas companies have announced a plan to offer high-speed Internet service over the power grid.

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Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales edits his own biography

He has edited his own bio to give himself more credit for founding the site, the wiki's edit logs reveal. He's also excised references to soft pornography on a website he ran earlier in his career. Didn't he learn anything from Adam Curry?

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IBM's Anonymous Move Into Privacy Software

IBM says yes to anonymity software that safeguards people's identities during information exchanges.

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One More Way to Screw Cingular, Free 411 Service

Boing Boing is reporting today on a new advertising based 411 service that works from both your land line and cell phone. For listening to a 12 second advertisment you can get your 411 calls for free at 800-FREE411.

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use Google as a free proxy

at work? blocked site? proxy blocked also?
Fear not, since google is almost never blocked!
This artice shows you how to use Google itself as a real-time (as in: not via Accelerator or Cache) web proxy for shady and interesting websites! Don't Be Evil? yeah Right!

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Google Earth Frightens Nation-States

Idiots in government across the world tremble before the might of Google Earth.

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Icahn seeks to derail Google as AOL partner

Dissident shareholder Carl Icahn aims to block an alliance by Time Warner's America Online unit and Web search leader Google, saying the pact could undermine a potential merger between AOL and a Google rival.

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Monday, December 19, 2005

Hacker takes care of Santa Claus

We've seen our share of hacks, from elevators to Paris Hilton's cell phone, but this one is impressive by any measure. A fellow named Josh McCormick has explained in great detail, with photos and video, how he hacked a 5-foot-tall electronically animated Santa Claus.

read more | digg story

Experts see shares slide as Baidu opens lock-up

Shares of Baidu.com have fallen as much as 9.7 percent since Tuesday, when the company said it would allow insider shareholders to start liquidating their holdings more than a year earlier than was planned at the time of its initial public offering on August 5.

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A better way to count clicks?

Web publishers may soon have to change the way they count visitor traffic, whether they like it or not.

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Del.icio.us site pulled down due to power outage and hiccups

Due to the power outage earlier in the week, we appear a number of continued hiccups. We've taken everything offline to properly rebuild and restore everything. I apologize and hope to have this resolved as soon as possible. Thank you for your continued patience.

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Will google be next in the attack on those who promote distribute lyrics

Using the "music:" operator, search for your favorite band. Then find lyrics via google to their top songs. Will google be next?

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Google Trying to Make Music Searches Smoother

Ever try to recall lost lyrics by humming the tune to a friend? Now there are more technical -- and potentially more accurate -- ways to get the job done.

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Google releases GTalk API - how will eBay/Skype respond?

TechCrunch reports that Google has released a set of components called Libjingle, which will allow third party applications to interoperate with Google Talk's peer-to-peer and voice calling capabilities.

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Time Warner Inc. unit AOL near deal with Google; Microsoft Corp. out

Time Warner Inc. ended talks with Microsoft Corp. Friday and entered exclusive negotiations with Google Inc. over a $1 billion US investment and a broader advertising partnership with America Online, executives close to the talks said.

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Google Now Supports UPC Code Lookup

Google has added yet another feature to integrate an existing third party web service. If you enter a UPC code, it automatically references a link to the UPC Database project to perform a lookup. Way cool!

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Google Librarian

Google Librarian is the ultimate guide to Google made especially for Librarians and information professionals. Google Librarian was created to help you - the librarian - master the art of online searching and harness the infinite power of Google and its services. Sounds like a good idea, but I would sure like to see some more real content here.

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The "Switching to Gmail" Guide from Google

A new "guide" from Google that's designed to help users of other email services in their switch to Gmail. (via blog.searchenginewatch.com)

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Opera dismisses Google takeover talk as rumor

Opera said it has not been approached for an acquisition by Google, and dismissed talk of such a move as rumor.

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By the Googlers. For the Googlers

Here's a blog which can have a lot of people interested. This is a blog run by Google employees and has some interesting content on it.

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Google Has Eliminated the Use of Thought

Why dig into your brain to remember something? Just use Google and all need for long-term memory disintegrates.

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Japanese aiming to clone Google

Japan's government, high-tech firms and universities will team up to develop their own Internet search technology, an official said, amid soaring profits for US giant Google.

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World view for PSP

A Google Earth-esque site that will let you spy overhead satellite style anywhere in the world on your favorite Sony handheld. Just load up the browser on your PSP and navigate to the site.

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Has Google Become More "Evil" Than Microsoft?

A little-known part of the Google deal to buy part of AOL for $1 billion is a shocker: Google agreed to a link scheme that Microsoft called unethical, but that Google was only too happy to accede to, according to the New York Times. What's going on here? Isn't Microsoft supposed to be the bad guys, while Google is the "do-no-evil" company?

read more | digg story

Hacker takes care of Santa Claus

We've seen our share of hacks, from elevators to Paris Hilton's cell phone, but this one is impressive by any measure. A fellow named Josh McCormick has explained in great detail, with photos and video, how he hacked a 5-foot-tall electronically animated Santa Claus.

read more | digg story

Thursday, December 15, 2005

AT&T doubles up on DSL speed

"AT&T on Monday introduced a DSL service designed to double download speeds for small and medium-sized business customers of its hosted Web services."

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Google Homepage API Released

The personalized homepage was created to bring together the stuff that interests you from across the web. From an engineering perspective, this became an opportunity to create a framework for all types of content and information. Supporting RSS and Atom feeds was one step in that direction.

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Robin Williams is a sniper? - in Battlefield 2

Apparently, he's been gaming a lot online with Battlefield 2 and his favorite class is the sniper. So next time you're screaming at "thatfriggin camper!", feel consoled; it may be a celebrity shooting at you.

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Is Google set to acquire Opera?

"Dirson's New Google Blog links to a French language blog by Pierre Chappaz (former president of Yahoo! Europe), who quotes sources saying that the acquisition is going down." --- If true, Google would have the web browser to to go along with the search engine...

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Gmail now has a vacation responce!

Going on vacation? No access to the Internet? No problem! Use Gmail's vacation responder to let people know you won't be able to get back to them right away.

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Gmail Contact Groups: Finally

I have been waiting for this feature for such a long time. It will make group email blasts so much easier. I believe that they will roll it out gradually like they have other features.

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Forbes Magazine Interviews Digg Chief Executive Jay Adelson

"...Every large content organization has already contacted the company, says Digg.com Chief Executive Jay Adelson, after those media companies noticed significant amounts of traffic coming from his site. Some of the companies are interested in placing a "Digg this story" button..."

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The End of Internet Anonymity

Several computer hardware and software manufacturers, including AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft and Sun, have gotten together and created a chip that will be built into computers that will, for all intents and purposes, broadcast a unique identifier that anyone will be able to read when you access the Internet.

read more | digg story

Google whistles a new tune

Google's getting into the music biz. A new feature launched today adds special info when people do music-related searches: "Items that can be purchased will have links to merchants for online ordering or downloading, she said. Initial merchant partners include Apple Computer's iTunes service, RealNetworks Rhapsody, eMusic, Amazon.com"

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Monday, December 12, 2005

Wikipedia Class Action Lawsuit

Recent news articles have exposed a growing problem with untrue and libelous information being posted on the highly popular Wikipedia site. Now complaints are being gathered from the Internet community for a class action lawsuit, in an apparent attempt to get the site shut down.

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Yahoo and Six Apart team up

Yahoo and Six Apart were set to announce a partnership on Monday. Yahoo will offer users the ability to create blogs using Six Apart's Movable Type software and have them hosted on Yahoo Small Business hosting service.

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Thursday, December 08, 2005

Answers.com Acquires Search Engine BrainBoost For $10 Million

Answers.com, the online reference site, has bought out natural language search engine and technology company Brainboost, in a cash and stock deal worth up to $10 million.

read more | digg story

Answers.Yahoo.com Goes Live

"Just online (in beta) is Yahoo's new social networking/online community/search/question answering service called Yahoo Answers. The service allows any registered Yahoo user to ask just about any question and hopefully get an answer from another member of the question answering community. Access to Yahoo Answers is free."

read more | digg story

Microsoft offers a new angle on maps

Microsoft on Thursday will unveil a beta version of Windows Live Local, which is based on its Virtual Earth aerial image application and integrates local search, mapping, driving directions and yellow pages with a bird's-eye view of major U.S. cities.

read more | digg story

Microsoft, Google still vying for AOL

Microsoft and Google are in a "two-horse" race to strike an Internet advertising partnership with Time Warner's AOL online unit, sources familiar with the talks said. Let the best and most hungriest company win.

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Microsoft Rips Off Google Homepage!

Check this out, Microsoft has completely stolen Google Home Page (http://www.google.com/ig). Same color scheme, same features, same EVERYTHING. Has Microsoft labs just given up?

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Microsoft eyes services for business

Microsoft may be rushing headlong into online services targeted to consumers. But for its all-important business customers, the software giant has been taking a more measured approach.

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Ballmer 'keen' on Web advertising, mum on AOL

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Wednesday that the online-advertising business is of "keen interest" to the software giant, but he refused to comment on any potential deal with Time Warner's America Online unit.

read more | digg story

Battle over control of Fast Search & Transfer

Shareholders of Norway's Opticom are meeting on Wednesday to decide who controls the company once feted by technology giants but now reduced to what its own managing director calls a "dead cat."

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Google Transit Launched!

Today, we are happy and proud to tell you that their efforts have resulted in a new Google Labs experiment: Google Transit Trip Planner. With it, commuters will be able to easily access public transit schedules, routes, and plan trips using their local public transportation options.

read more | digg story

More new Gmail features

It's only been about a week since Google introduced Anti-Virus capabilities into Gmail, and now the Googlers are now ready to start offering a few more interesting features that may raise a few eyebrows. Their "What's New" page has changed once again and outlines a few extra features that aren't yet available.

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Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Kung Fu Monks Go Modern

They'll kick your butt and snipe your Ebay deal!

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Insurgents Using Chem Weapons - On Themselves?

Over a year ago, a Marine Colonel noted that insurgents in Iraq "are taking drugs to get high before attacks" -- including one called "BZ that makes them high and very aggressive." But BZ is not your typical substance of abuse. Itâ??s a hallucinogenic chemical weapon, developed by the U.S. military during the Cold War.

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Graffiti Hackers

Text-message projectors. Paintball printers. Wall-crawling robots. The new crew of tech taggers makes a name for itself.

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Student trapped in toilet after fishing for cellphone

"A student in Ukraine reportedly had to be freed by rescuers on after dropping his mobile phone down a toilet and getting his arm stuck trying to retrieve it." --- Dude, no cell phone is worth losing a limb over...not to mention your dignity...

read more | digg story

ICANN gives tentative OK on '.asia' domain

The quasi-governmental organization that oversees the Internet has given tentative approval for a ".asia" Web domain to unify the Asia-Pacific community.

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Sony's Urban PSP Campaign Irritates Residents

PSP graffiti - Sony has apparently been paying artists to paint "fake" graffiti images of the PSP in some of the most populous U.S. cities.

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New Sony CD security risk found

Another security risk from a DIFFERENT batch of CDs! IT just never ends for Sony does it?

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New IM worm chats with its intended victims

A new worm that targets users of America Online's AOL Instant Messenger is believed to be the first that actually chats with the intended victim to dupe the target into activating a malicious payload, IM security vendor IMlogic warned Tuesday.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

NASA Satellite Image Showing Melting Arctic Ice

This NASA handout satellite image obtained shows the minimum concentration of Arctic sea ice that occurred in September 2005, when the sea ice extent dropped to 2.05 million sq. miles. Global warming is melting the Arctic ice so fast that a new sea route is opening up between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

read more | digg story

Play to Win. Now.

Those who follow sports know the big difference between a team that's playing to win versus one that's playing not to lose. The team trying to win is aggressive and proactive.

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CapRock Listed as One of the Top Teleport Operators of 2005

Satellite Communications Service Providerâ??s Success Earns Recognition On Two of Three Rankings from the World Teleport Association

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Google Stumbles with Print Ads

Advertising in a magazine is just like advertising online, right? Wrong.

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Cautious ad spending this year, but Web spared

Leading forecasters of advertising spending have turned cautious in their predictions for most media, except--not surprisingly--the Internet.

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Google: Ten Golden Rules (Newsweek Article)

Getting the most out of knowledge workers will be the key to business success for the next quarter century. Here's how we do it at google.

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NextiraOne Helps Security and IP Telephony Converge

NextiraOne Unveils Information Security Services for Converged Networks

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New bundles mark Adobe's Macromedia merger

Application developer Adobe completed its takeover of Macromedia on Monday and promptly unveiled three software bundles for graphics designers.

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Yahoo! - Local Events Browser in Beta

Yahoo!'s local events browser using the Yahoo! Maps AJAX API allows you to see what is going on in your town. It includes tag clouds, calendar, venue listings and more. if you can't find something to do this weekend, wait till it's out of beta...

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Web Monkey -- Web Developer's Resource

This is a pretty neat site with many HOW-TOs and References for the beginner to the master. It's been around since oh... about 1996ish


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Hacking Google Print - Easily View Whole Books

Using this simple search term, you can view (nearly) every page in a whole book. I wanted to read the book "Hacking the XBOX" by Bunnie, so this is how I did it. Is this legal?

read more | digg story

E-tracking may change the way your drive

First spotted this on Slashdot. USDOT wants to know where you are and where you go so they can tax you for road usage. Unfortunately for us, this would also remove all privacy from our commutes.

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2005 to end at 23:59:60

An extra leap second will be introduced at the very end of 2005 to compensate astronomical differences. NTP-enabled servers should take this into account.

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Can there be another Google?

Internet search is reaching an important pivot point, where market leaders are rewarded by Wall Street, laggards are punished, and start-ups try to fill niches left empty by the major players.

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Monday, December 05, 2005

Friday, December 02, 2005

GMail Virus Scanning is here!!

Go Google!

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Tech to see 'Google effect' next year

Next year will bring moderate growth in IT spending, which will push many vendors into taking the plunge and developing some disruptive business models.

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Myspace is Invaded by HR

With social networking on the internet growing at the pace it is, some employers are now using Myspace to research their applicants.

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Pantie Shots Galore!

ok now this is just weird....
(â??Line-Kill Spiritsâ???) is a 3D fighting game that features little girls beating up on each other; nothing new there. The kicker, however, is that any damage you do to your opponent will slowly regenerate unlessâ?¦ wait for itâ?¦ you take a picture of her panties."

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CompuUSA Founder Nathan Morton dies

Nathan Morton, who helped turned two computer stores into the CompUSA chain, died Thursday at age 57.

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Security firms warn of new Microsoft threats

More Trojan horses target a known IE flaw, while a vulnerability is reported in SQL database. My take, download firefox and pray.

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Is eBay going to be shut down?

After losing their patent infringement case, eBay is appealing to the Supreme Court. This could be the end of eBay as we know it! HOORAY!!

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Adobe's Macromedia takeover clears final hurdle

Adobe's multi-billion dollar takeover of rival software developer Macromedia has received regulatory clearance and is expected to be completed Saturday.

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Consumers snap up computers on Black Friday

I was out of town last friday, but oh I wish I could have made it to BestBuy!

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WikiPedia Slander?

John Seigenthaler, former administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy, has a bone to pick with Wikipedia.

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Best Buy 'hacker' loses in court

Thomas Eli Ray was convicted of attempting to extort $2.5 million from Best Buy by threatening to exploit a breach in its computer security. He appealed the conviction, saying someone else sent the e-mails.

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Clear Channel eyes Net distribution deals

Clear Channel Communications could possibly ink distribution deals with Yahoo or Apple Computer's iTunes music service by next year, a senior executive said on Wednesday.

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That Google feeling, but on the cheap

Why do some search terms on Google or Yahoo cost advertisers $12.47 while similar ones sell for 18 cents? Sometimes, it's a lack of imagination, says Pinstorm CEO Mahesh Murthy.

read more | digg story

Microsoft Anti-Virus Public Beta : A first review.

Basically, Microsft just released a Norton systemworks lookalike. This is nothing new, but it is free! Most IT people will prefer to keep their original tools to do their work. This application was meant to be used by people who do not know much about computers and who wants to keep maintenance of their operating system as simple as possible.

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The MySpace Generation

"They live online. They buy online. They play online. Their power is growing "

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Google Desktop Cracked Using Fully Patched IE

An unpatched design flaw in Microsoft Corp.â??s Internet Explorer browser using fully patched IE browser could give malicious hackers an easy way to use the Google Desktop application to covertly hijack user information.

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ICANN drops plan to approve .xxx

Attempts to create a domain name to handle adult online content faced an uncertain future on Friday after ICANN abandoned plans to debate the issue.

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Thursday, December 01, 2005

Googlephobia

Google may be the giant asteroid that is going to make the old-media dinosaurs extinct? but the publishing industry is trying to head it off.

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Gmail Hack: Encrypt Gmail Login AND Gmail Traffic

Here's a write-up of a simple Gmail "Hack" that I found that encrypts ALL traffic, not just your login session.

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Digg Death Penalty = Mob Justice?

"While the camera seller deserves to be outed publicly for the scam and it's hard to feel any sympathy at all for the scammer, at what point does the "Digg death penalty" go too far?"

- well.. did he get his money back yet?

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Scientists Make Cow Farts Smell Like Roses

LONDON (Reuters) - Cows belching and breaking wind cause methane pollution but scientists say they have developed a diet to make pastures smell like roses -- almost.

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Digg on Marketwatch

In this video interview, Digg's CEO discusses digg.com's future and talks about the Digging phenomena.

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Apology Letter From Ed Lopez, Owner of PriceRitePhoto


MUHAHAHA!!!

Ed Lopez, the owner of PriceRitePhoto. We spoke at length and he told me that the activity that has resulted from my post on my experience with his business has most certainly impacted his business. Note: This is from Thomas Hawk's blog, not me!

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Three clicks donates a dollar to AIDS/HIV research.

Click the title, click where you live, click why you want them to donate. They're giving up to $100,000, but only if you click on it! They're over 1/3 of the way there!

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Wired Tools 2005

100+ super cool gadgets for the technophile's holiday wish list. Everything from lcd's to refrigerators? Nice pics and some pretty high end stuff.

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The Buddha lives

A meditating teenage boy in south-central Nepal is drawing the attention of scientists after attracting huge crowds in the past six months and earning himself the name Buddha-reincarnate...

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Abusive New York Camera Store Threatens Blogger

"I will make sure you will never be able to place an order on the internet again." "I'm an attorney, I will sue you." "I'm going to call your local police and have two officers come over and arrest you." Just a few of the fun things I got to hear today from someone who said his name was Steve Phillips over at PriceRitePhoto.

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Exhibitionists Complain When Students Post Nude Pictures

Nude pictures of classmates posted online have landed U Penn students in trouble, but does taking pictures of a public sex act count as harassment?

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Grateful Dead to Allow Free Web Downloads

Well, it seems that the Grateful Dead have changed their minds about free downloads. Deadheads rejoice.

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PlayStation 3 Controller Revealed

Sony has made some change in the design of its new console controller. As opposed to the previous Dual Shock, the new controller takes a more ergonomic shape, resembling a boomerang. Have a look at the animated image in this piece of news and see for yourselves.

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Phishers use IRS tax refund as bait

Insufficient programming on a government Web site is helping cybercriminals pose as the Internal Revenue Service in a scam to collect sensitive data, some security experts warn...

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NY AG Blasts Sony, Says Rootkit CDs Still For Sale

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office berated Sony yesterday for not making good on its promise to pull spyware-installing CDs from store shelves.

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Home Nuclear Particle Acceleration Freaks Out Neighbors

This guy has Anchorage up in arms about his plans...and my neighbor freaked when I bought a trampoline!

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Hooked on the Web: Help Is on the Way

"Specialists estimate that 6 percent to 10 percent of the approximately 189 million Internet users in this country have Internet addictions."

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RSS Is Next Target for Worms says Trend Micro

Security researchers at Trend Micro Inc. have pinpointed RSS as a lucrative target for future bot worm attacks. "RSS feed hijacking will become commonplace when Microsoft ships IE7, a browser refresh that will feature built-in RSS support."

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GMail anti-virus coming very very soon....

Google is very close to introducing anti-virus to it's GMail service.

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Podcast Hijacked, Held for Ransom

"In an assault reminiscent of the early days of the Internet, Podcaster Erik Marcus recently found that his RSS feed had been inexplicably redirected. The cyber-squatter is demanding payment or permanent agreement to terms, and Marcus is seeking legal redress for this new form of Internet extortion."

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