Month: September 2011

Well, it seems earlier this week, a rumor started that Netflix was going to stop people from streaming two programs at the same time per account. There was groaning and gnashing of teeth! But, it turns out, according to Netflix, it was all just a bug that they are fixing. So, no, there is no “capping” of streaming programs per account. Everyone can relax now!

Breathe, breathe, people!

Well, maybe not an alternative, but, at least another source! And, a lot of the paid apps you might have been looking for are FREE there! Operating systems including Android, Blackberry, Java, Symbian and Mobile Web!

GetJar.com

“GetJar is the world’s largest free app store with over 2 billion downloads to date. The company distributes more than 150,000 mobile applications across a variety of operating systems including Android, Blackberry, Java, Symbian and Mobile Web. In 2010, GetJar was named a Technology Pioneer Award Winner by the World Economic Forum and listed by TIME magazine as One of the 10 companies that will change your life. GetJar is headquarted in Silicon Valley with offices in the UK and Lithuania. For more information, please visit www.getjar.com and follow us @GetJar.”

The first regular episode aired on September 8, 1966! And, and saw it live! I watched EVERY episode after that, and have watched them over and over ever since! And, all of it’s other iterations! So, happy birthday, Star Trek!

You know I love the Star Trek! May the Great Bird of the Galaxy be with us for a LONG, LONG time!

Now, we’re talkin’! More storage, more storage! (Like “mo’ power, mo’ power!”) Can haz?

Seagate Announces World’s First 4-Terabyte External Hard Drive

“Seagate announced the first 4-terabyte external hard drive in the market on Wednesday, paired with a USB 3.0 adapter for speedy data transfers.

The new GoFlex Desk drive costs $249.99, and will be available from ‘select online retailers’ later this month. A GoFlex Desk version for the Mac includes FireWire 800 – not Thunderbolt – as well as a USB 2.0 interface. That version will be on store shelves by the end of the month, Seagate said.

Seagate sells its FireWire 800 / USB 2.0 adapter for $49.99 on its Web site, and a USB 3.0 adapter for $39.99 on the site as well. Each of the GoFlex Desk drives also ships in a ‘drive only’ configuration if a user already has the adapter, although Seagate doesn’t currently list a price for the 4-terabyte model. The 3-TB model only shaves $10 off the price for the ‘drive only’ configuration, however.

The new GoFlex Drive includes a surprisingly elegant industrial design, one that reminds me of a Art Deco-styled skyscraper rather than a desktop hard drive – at least in the press photo that Seagate published. That design will roll out to the other drives in the GoFlex family in the coming weeks, Seagate said.

‘Yet another industry first for Seagate, we have reached a new high-capacity in the 3.5-inch hard drive form factor,’ said Patrick Connolly, vice president and general manager of retail products for Seagate, in a statement. ‘At Seagate, we are committed to pushing the limits for our customers and will continue to adapt and innovate our products based on customer needs. This latest GoFlex Desk drive offering, with its new industry-leading capacity point, is a statement of our continued commitment to meet consumer needs.'”

The sites themselves weren’t hacked, but the DNS entries were mis-directed on some popular web sites, such as: The Register, The Daily Telegraph, and UPS.

DNS hack hits popular websites: Telegraph, Register, UPS, etc

“Popular websites including The Register, The Daily Telegraph, UPS, and others have fallen victim to a DNS hack that has resulted in visitors being redirected to third-party webpages.

Part of the message reads:

TurkGuvengligi – ‘Gel Babana’ – HACKED – ‘h4ck1n9 is not a cr1m3’

‘4 Sept. We TurkGuvenligi declare this day as World Hackes Day – Have fun ;) h4ck y0u’

(In fact, this kind of vandalism IS a crime.)

Further websites which have been affected include National Geographic, BetFair and Acer.

It’s important to note that the websites themselves have *not* been hacked, although to web visitors there is little difference in what they experience – a webpage under the control of hackers.

Instead of managing to breach the website, the hackers have managed to change the DNS records for the various sites affected.

DNS records work like a telephone book, converting human-readable website names like nakedsecurity.sophos.com into a sequence of numbers understandable by the internet. What seems to have happened is that someone changed the lookup, so when you entered telegraph.co.uk or theregister.co.uk into your browser you were instead taken to a website that wasn’t under the control of those websites.

Because of the way that DNS works, it may take some time for corrected DNS entries for the affected websites to propagate worldwide – meaning there could be problems for some hours ahead.

In many ways we have to be grateful that the message displayed appears to be graffiti, rather than an attempt to phish information from users or install malware.”

One common thing appears to be that the affected sites were registered via NetNames… the vendor has had no comment on this as of yet.

Ahem! Well, I suppose there are some uses for it. If you don’t mind the slight illegality of downloading and viewing video off the torrents, that is!

World’s First BitTorrent Certified Digital TV Launches

“The world’s first Digital TV with ‘BitTorrent inside’ will be presented to the public tomorrow at the IFA trade show for consumer electronics in Berlin. The TV is manufactured by Vestel and uses technology from BitTorrent Inc. that allows consumers to find, download and play their favorite digital media directly on their television.

Early 2011 BitTorrent Inc., the company behind the popular file-sharing client uTorrent, launched a new all-in-one ecosystem for BitTorrent-certified products codenamed Chrysalis.

By using a certified application users can search for files that are shared on BitTorrent, download these files, and play them directly on their computers, TV or mobiles devices. Everything is bundled into one system and downloaders don’t have to worry about conversion, codecs or file-formats.

Today BitTorrent Inc. and TV manufacturer Vestel announce the launch of the first digital TV that will come with this built-in BitTorrent support. By embedding BitTorrent technology directly into the the TV hardware the two companies hope to appeal to a wide audience of people who are looking for an even more simple way to enjoy downloaded content in their living room.”