Month: July 2006

Well, then, wait until you get a new Nokia “Smell-O-Phone.” I call this “Techies-Gone-Wild!” Yeesh!

Non-scents from Nokia

“For six months, 25 Industrial Design MA students from London’s CSM College of Art and Design have been working to create concepts for a premium but mass market mobile device capable of providing 4G or 5G multimedia services. The students worked for a cash prize and, more importantly, for the chance to work side-by-side with Nokia’s design team during a summer placement at the Nokia design studios.The winning design, was also made into a dummy handset for an exhibition in London’s Air Gallery this week. One of the designs, the Nokia Scentsory, is superb, partly because it reminds us of the paper clackers that we used to make many, many years ago in the innocent days of our childhood. In Closed mode you use it like a slim candy bar phone, in open mode you can use the screens and keyboard. But the real piece of resistance is the Scentsory mode that uses scent detectors that ‘allow you to see, hear, feel and smell your caller’s environment.'”

YES! No doubt! David Gerrold, the author of the Star Trek “Trouble with Tribbles” episode, weighs in on the issue in eWeek:

The Science Fiction Files

It is a neat article, and combines my interests of SciFi, Trek, and Technology! What could be better?!

As you know, I strongly recommend Grisoft’s AVG Anti-Virus (which is FREE!) to everyone! And, I have recommended Ewido Anti-Spyware before as well:

My Article on Ewido from the Blog

Now, it seems that Grisoft has merged with Ewido Networks! So, they now offer Ewido on the same site and page as AVG! And, they have a great, free version! Check out their website, here:

Ewido Networks

Here’s a quote from their press release:

“GRISOFT, the maker of award-winning AVG Anti-Virus, today announced the acquisition of Ewido Networks, a leading provider of innovative anti-malware solutions. This acquisition expands GRISOFT’s AVG antivirus and firewall offerings to include comprehensive malware protection, and provide its customers with the highest level of security against growing types of malicious software spreading across the Internet.”

This apparently happened back in April of this year, but I missed it! Anyway, even if I am late in hearing about it… this is still great news! I am a big fan of Grisoft, and I know that they will do a great job with Ewido as well!

Weird question, you ask? Ah, but no! Here’s the deal. Spammers want to know, above all else, that the e-mail address that they have for you is a “good” one. So, if you go on vacation AND you set your e-mail to “auto-reply” to messages with your “happy little message” of “I’m out of the office…” Well, your auto-reply message goes back to the spammers as well, when their nasty viagra messages come in to your inbox. So, you have provided them with VERY valuable information!

So, what to do? Try this, BEFORE you go on vacation, send a message to the people that commonly (yet legitimately) send you e-mails a message saying that you will be out for a week. NOT your WHOLE e-mail list, just the main folks (you know who they are!)

Just a thought! Don’t give spammers any more info than you have to! Let’s be careful out there!

You have heard about it, but what is it? This is a great, concise description of the issues involved in “Net Neutrality!”

Net Neutrality Primer

Strange that ultra-liberal “MoveOn.org” AND the National Religious Broadcasters are BOTH on the same side in this, huh? I like what this article says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

It sure has been a slow week for tech news so far… but this item is one that I have mixed feelings about. I really like Winternals… they have awesome free utilities and tools that I use all the time! I sure hope that Microsoft gobbling them up means that we will lose out on these cool tools!

Microsoft buys Winternals

I will try and stay positive! Maybe Winternals programmers will help out M$!

“As part of the deal, the software maker is naming Winternals co-founder Mark Russinovich as a technical fellow. ‘I’ve had my eye on Mark for some time,’ Jim Allchin, Microsoft divisional co-president, said in a statement. ‘The work he and Bryce (Cogswell, Winternal’s other co-founder) have completed in system recovery and data protection illustrates the depth of thinking and skill they will bring to future versions of Windows. The addition of their deep kernel-level expertise to our existing strong talent will help provide us with the edge we need to continue to raise the quality and functionality bar for Windows on both the client and the server.’ In buying Winternals, Microsoft is getting the company’s free tools, its Sysinternals community Web site as well as several paid-for software products for businesses. However, it appears Microsoft made the deal, in large part, to hire the company’s two co-founders. ‘It’s definitely about talent,’ Platform and Services division architect Jason Garms said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. ‘Mark is one of the top five or 10 people in the world when it comes to Windows internals.'”

Microsoft Word had a zero-day bug, then Excel, now its PowerPoint. Really gives you confidence in Microsoft’s “Security Initiative,” huh?

Microsoft Confirms PowerPoint Zero-Day Attack

“The latest attack exploits a previously undocumented flaw in Microsoft PowerPoint, the ubiquitous presentation program used by millions of users around the world. The attack comes just days after Microsoft’s July Patch Tuesday and closely mirrors the situation in June when a zero-day Excel attack was discovered 24 hours after Patch Day. Virus hunters at Symantec linked the zero-day attack to a Trojan horse program called Trojan.PPDropper.B that arrives via e-mail from a Gmail address. The subject line of the mail and the .ppt file-name are in Chinese characters, suggesting that the attacks are emanating from—and attacking targets—in the Far East. If the PowerPoint attachment is opened, the Trojan drops and executes a variant of Backdoor.Bifrose.E, a keystroke logger that is used to steal sensitive information and send it back to a remote server controlled by malicious hackers.”