Month: November 2011

Ouch… Facebook is supposed to be pretty much “family friendly.” But ugly porn images sent by anti-Facebook spammers have hit the web site, and cluttered up user’s “walls” with porn images.

Facebook users reel from porn spam attack

“Computerworld – After being bombarded with hard-core pornographic and violent images on their news feeds, some Facebook users may change how and if they use the social network, according to industry analysts.

For the past few days, Facebook has battled an attack that flooded the site with explicit and distressing images. A Facebook spokeswoman told Computerworld that its security team has identified ‘many of the actors responsible’ and is working on an ‘appropriate action.’

And while the social network’s lawyers are looking for ways to handle the spammers, many users are reeling from the images they saw in their news feeds. Some of them took to Twitter to vent their frustrations and connect with others.

‘Facebook use to be friends and family, now Facebook = porn site,’ XtinaSayWhat tweeted, And kimpoyfeliciano also tweeted, ‘That awkward moment when your Facebook Newsfeed turned into a porn site.’

Others went further and said they might quit Facebook altogether over the spam assault.

‘I’m considering deleting my facebook because of all the porn/ dead animals and babies. its disgusting,’ tweeted sarahjacobss. And UP4RUNWAY tweeted, ‘I might deactivate my Facebook soon…all these porn going around and ending up on my wall…it’s ridiculous.’

Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst with ZK Research, isn’t surprised that users would consider dropping Facebook over the attack. If similar attacks follow, many may do it.”

However, Facebook now claims that they have stopped the attack. The Star-Tribune now reports: “Facebook said that it has stopped most of the spam that has flooded many users’ pages with pictures showing graphic sex and violence. The social-networking company urged its 800 million-plus users to remain vigilant to keep their accounts from being hijacked. That includes reporting suspicious links on friends’ pages and not clicking on links that offer deals that are too good to be true.”

Looks like the “Music Wars” are heating up… now Google is getting into the fray. What will this mean (ultimately) for Apple?

Google launches music service

“(Reuters) – Google Inc has turned on the music at its new online store, aiming to wrest the lead from Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc in audio entertainment distribution despite the absence of a major record label.

Google Music, with more 13 million songs, will be integrated with Android Market, the company’s online store for smartphone apps and videos as it plays catch-up with its rivals. Apple, Amazon and Facebook have to varying degrees integrated music into their core online and mobile products.

Google Music will allow the Web search leader to do the same by letting consumers access music from various Internet-connected devices and easily share tracks with friends.

But analysts said the lack of soundtracks from Warner Music – a major label whose artists include Led Zeppelin and Prince, among others – will limit the appeal of Google Music.

‘They’ve got to get that catalog filled pretty quickly,’ said Mike McGuire, an analyst at industry research firm Gartner. ‘It’s a launch, but it’s kind of like a work-in-progress.’

Google Music was unveiled at a splashy event at the Mr. Brainwash Studios in Hollywood, California on Wednesday.

Google has negotiated U.S. deals with three of the four major music companies: Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group; Sony Corp’s Sony Music Entertainment; and EMI. It has also signed deals with the increasingly influential independent label group Merlin and London-based Beggar’s Banquet label group, home to the year’s biggest selling artist, Adele.

Analysts say selling online music is unlikely to provide much of a lift to Google’s revenue. But they say Google needs to be in the market to ensure that its Android-based mobile efforts can match offerings from competitors.

Android is the world’s No. 1 smartphone operating system, powering about 200 million devices worldwide. But without a music service, Android-based smartphones and tablets may not be as attractive to consumers seeking a product that offers a seamless media experience.

And with music storage increasingly moving to remote Internet servers in ‘the cloud’ rather than on the device itself, companies like Google and Apple have a way to keep users locked in to their respective mobile services, said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

‘Everyone is using music and media as a jail. Ultimately, this stuff is going to be stored in the cloud and it becomes harder and harder to switch systems,’ he said.

To help jump-start the new music store, Google said it will offer one free song for consumers to download every day.

Google will also allow consumers to share purchased songs with friends on the Google+ social network. The feature will give users of Google+ a ‘free, full-play’ of songs purchased by their friends.

‘Recommendations from friends are the single most important way that people discover music and we think that this feature has the potential to really transform purchasing behavior,’ said Zahavah Levine, Google’s director of content partnerships for Android, at Wednesday’s event.

Music executives said that even though sales have struggled in recent years, music usage has never been more popular on different types of formats like social networks and mobile devices.”

Now what to do with it? Ideas?

Dr. Bill Bailey.NET on Google +

Join me there! We’ll figure it our together! Dr. Bill Bailey.NET is the “company” (really just me) behind all the shows I do. Our netcasts (podcasts for the non-Leo Laporte fans) are: Dr. Bill.TV (the main show), VirtZine (The On-Line Magazine of Virtualization and Cloud Computing), Hand Held Hack, The Traditional Naturopath Podcast (audio only), The Word of Faith Netcast, and the Word of Faith Broadcast! Whew! I stay busy!

So… I am somewhat less “sociable” than some… I am struggling with it a bit… so, it may take a while to suss it all out!

I like Mint… it is not the distro I run on my own system, that is Ubuntu, but I am VERY impressed with Mint. This new version looks very cool. Time to play!

New Features in Linux Mint 12

“Linux Mint 12 comes with a brand new desktop, built with Gnome 3 and MGSE.

‘MGSE’ (Mint Gnome Shell Extensions) is a desktop layer on top of Gnome 3 that makes it possible for you to use Gnome 3 in a traditional way. You can disable all components within MGSE to get a pure Gnome 3 experience, or you can enable all of them to get a Gnome 3 desktop that is similar to what you’ve been using before. Of course you can also pick and only enable the components you like to design your own desktop.

The main features in MGSE are:

• The bottom panel
• The application menu
• The window list
• A task-centric desktop (i.e. you switch between windows, not applications)
• Visible system tray icons

MGSE also includes additional extensions such as a media player indicator, and multiple enhancements to Gnome 3.

The Linux Mint 12 desktop is a mix of old and new. It’s a brand new desktop but with traditional components. The new technology in Gnome 3 is exciting but the components contributed by MGSE make users feel at home. Linux Mint 12, like previous releases, and despite the fact that it’s based on Gnome 3, looks and behaves like a Mint desktop. You can launch applications from the bottom left, easily switch between applications and workspaces using the window list or keyboard shortcuts, keep an eye on your notifications at the top and access Gnome 3 features like “activities” from the top-left corner.

MATE

MATE is a fork of Gnome 2 which is compatible with Gnome 3. Thanks to MATE, you can run both versions of Gnome on the same system.

MATE is present on the DVD edition of Linux Mint 12. Users of the CD edition can install it via the mint-meta-mate package.

MATE is brand new, it’s not completely stable yet, and it’s missing a few parts. It’s being actively maintained and with close collaboration between the MATE developers and Linux Mint. With time the project will gain maturity and provide users with a traditional and solid desktop experience.

Eventually, MATE will be in every way identical to Gnome 2 and represent the future of traditional desktops within Linux.

In Linux Mint 12, both mintDesktop (in the RC) and mintMenu (in the stable release) are adapted and receive full support to work with MATE.

Artwork Improvements

Linux Mint 12 uses a new theme called Mint-Z which is based on Mint-X and Zukitwo.

Backgrounds: Like in the previous release, the default background shows a 3D scene featuring the Linux Mint logo. The original artwork comes from an artist called Gelsan. Additional quality backgrounds are also available, including fantastic photographs from India and the Yellowstone National Park.

Search Engines

Duck Duck Go: The new default search engine is Duck Duck Go. It doesn’t show different results depending on who’s making the search, it doesn’t track or record user information, it provides you with optmized results and it’s built on and contributes to Open Source.

Development of a new business model: Search engines will share with Linux Mint the revenue generated for them by Linux Mint users. Some search engines partnered with Linux Mint already and are present in Linux Mint 12.

Easy installation of other engines: The way you install search engines in Linux Mint 12 is radically different than in previous releases. Clear explanations and easy instructions are there for the user to understand how search engines help Linux Mint and to decide what to do. The installation of additional search engines is also now much easier than before.

Upstream Components

Linux Mint 12 features the following upstream components: Ubuntu 11.10, Linux 3.0, Gnome 3.2.”

Jeffery Powers had this on Google +

“For some, you have already celebrated. But I wish you all a Happy 00110001001100010010110100110001001100010010110100110001001100010010
00000011000100110001001110100011000100110001”

Binary. Very geeky!

Mashable says that, “One group of hackers has dubbed it ‘Nerd New Year.’ They’ll be lining the streets of Redwood City, in the heart of Silicon Valley, for an outdoor hackathon and party, including the countdown to Nerd New Year itself at 11:11 p.m. ‘It is ON,’ organizer Adam Rifkin told Patch. (That’s a binary joke, by the way.)”

I love my Roku, as you know, so set-top boxes for Internet-based TV is awesome! But, GoogleTV apparrently just didn’t “catch on!”

Logitech confesses to ‘gigantic’ mistake with Google TV

“Logitech is halting production of its Google TV Revue set-top boxes, acknowledging that the whole affair was a financial disaster for the company.

At an Analyst and Investor Day hosted by Logitech on Wednesday, CEO Guerrino De Luca confessed that the Revue was a ‘mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature.’ In his presentation, DeLuca in part pointed the finger at Google TV, referring to it as a ‘beta’ product, according to The Verge.

De Luca told investors that Logitech lost more than $100 million in operating profits on the Revue after bringing it to the market almost a year ago. As a result, the company will simply let existing inventory of the Revue run out this quarter and will not make another set-top box to replace it.

The CEO intimated that Google TV simply wasn’t ready to launch when it did and that Logitech mistakenly thought the search giant’s product was revolutionary, The Verge reported. DeLuca also blamed his company’s own ‘operational miscues in EMEA [Europe, Middle East, and Africa]’ for the Revue’s failure to ignite the market.

‘To make the long story short, we thought we had invented [sliced] bread and we just made them,’ DeLuca said. The company made a commitment to ‘just build a lot because we expected everybody to line up for Christmas and buy these boxes [at] $300…that was a big mistake.'”

I am an Ubuntu desktop guy myself, but one of my friends at work uses Fedora as his standard desktop (notebook) OS… it looks pretty cool. I may have to “play” with it!

Fedora 16 released with GNOME 3.2, virtualization enhancements

“The Red Hat-sponsored Fedora Project released Fedora 16 (‘Verne’), featuring the GNOME 3.2 desktop environment and virtualization and cloud enhancements — including support for the Aeolus and OpenStack Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platforms. Version 16 upgrades the techie-focused Linux distribution to Linux 3.1, and moves up to the GRUB2 bootloader and Firefox 7.0.1, while offering enhanced contact and document management apps.

As we noted when the Fedora Project released its first beta of Fedora 16 in early October, the release is notable to desktop end users primarily for its upgrade to the GNOME 3.2 desktop. Fedora first tried out GNOME 3.0 in Fedora 15, a more significant release that also added a dynamic firewall, the SystemD configuration utility, and major new applications.

Like Fedora, which acts as the cutting-edge, Red Hat-backed upstream contributor to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), SUSE’s OpenSUSE also moved to GNOME 3.2 in its 12.1 beta. And on Nov. 4, the Linux Mint team succumbed to the wheels of ‘progress,’ announcing that the upcoming Linux Mint 12 will offer GNOME 3.
Mint, however, will also keep a full-fledged GNOME 2.32 alternative to the controversial GNOME 3. By comparison, Fedora 16 and OpenSUSE 12.1 will block users from booting into GNOME 2.x except for a simplified fallback mode for low-end systems.

GNOME 3.2 is said to have squashed many of the bugs of the original, while fixing a few of the most unpopular changes. Yet, GNOME has not backtracked much from its radical UI makeover. Fortunately, Fedora 16 also offers KDE Plasma Workspace 4.7 as an alternative.”