Category: Computers, Science & Technology

Awesome news for those of us that are current Codeweavers Office users! They have consolidated all their products and combined them into one new, super cool version!

Here’s the email I got:

“In the absence of our fearless leader, Jeremy White (who is traveling on business today), I am charged with making the happy announcement that we have shipped CrossOver XI, for both Mac and Linux.

This release of the product marks a major step forward, for two reasons. First, we have consolidated and simplified CrossOver into a single product. The previous Pro, Standard, and Bundle distinctions have been consigned to history. Likewise, we have rolled CrossOver Games into the main product as well. So now there is only a single product: CrossOver. However, customers can still choose the price point that works for them by choosing the length of the support entitlement they want to purchase: 1 month, 6 months, or 12 months.

Second, CrossOver XI runs many more applications than its predecessor 10.0 (“Impersonator”). Perhaps the most important of these is Microsoft Office 2010 (which we are pleased to offer initial support for), but there are dozens more. CrossOver is built on Wine 1.4, which incorporates more than 16,000 patches since version 1.2, meaning that a lot more stuff runs, or runs better, than it did only a year ago.

One important note: CrossOver XI is the last version of CrossOver that will support OS X 10.5 (Leopard). The next major version of CrossOver will require OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) at a minimum.

Finally, we have also launched a completely new website to support CrossOver XI. We hope that this new design will make it easier for people to discover what CrossOver is all about, by giving them the information they need to make an informed purchasing decision. We have also greatly streamlined how customers can get support from us.

If you are an existing CrossOver customer with an active support entitlement, you can visit our web site to download this latest version:
https://www.codeweavers.com
You will need to log in with the email and password that you used when purchasing CrossOver. Please write to info@codeweavers.com if you need help with this process.

Thanks again for all your support, and I hope that you enjoy CrossOver XI!

Cheers,

Jon Parshall
COO
CodeWeavers”

Uh-oh! The Cloud is a problem for gamers it seems!

Mass Effect 3 can’t import completed save game files from the cloud

“EA has revealed an issue that could prevent Xbox 360 users from importing their completed Mass Effect 2 save data into Mass Effect 3.

The series allows players of the latest release to import save data from previous games, ensuring that the look of their character, the decisions and actions they’ve taken, and squad mates they’ve lost remains consistent.

But those who have saved their completed Mass Effect 2 data to the cloud and don’t still have access to the system on which the save was originally made may not be able to salvage the completed endgame file

EA says:

The following scenarios will result in no import functionality:

Moving your save file from the hard drive disc to the cloud.

Moving your save file to another Xbox 360 system via the cloud (instead of a memory card, transfer cable or Xbox 360 formatted USB stick).

Solution to scenario 1:

Move your save file from the cloud back onto the hard drive from which it originated, i.e. the Xbox 360 you originally created the save file on.

Solution to scenario 2:

Move your save file from the cloud back onto the hard drive from which it originated, i.e. the Xbox 360 you originally created the save file on.

Using a memory card, Xbox 360 formatted USB stick, or the Official Xbox 360 HDD transfer cable, transfer the save file to the new Xbox 360.

Currently there is one scenario in which you might not salvage the completed, endgame save file: if you have ever moved your file to the cloud and the original system is not available to transfer it back to.

While it’s possible that one might be able to reload a non-original save game near the end of Mass Effect 2 to ‘re-finish’ the game to populate a new endgame save, we unfortunately cannot guarantee that this will work with certainty. Lastly, you may also experience importing issues if you’ve downloaded or used custom Mass Effect 2 saves, or have edited your own save using a community-created program. We understand this may be a great setback to those impacted who have been following the Mass Effect franchise over the years. We thank you for your patience.

Mass Effect 3 is out now in North America and will be available on these shores from Friday. If it wasn’t clear enough from our Mass Effect 3 review, the third entry in BioWare’s sci-fi trilogy is one of the best games you’re likely to play this year.”

If your space agency is not secure, what is?!? Well, NASA is not that secure apparently! (Maybe they should not use “Password1” as their passwords!) Just sayin’!

NASA Was Hacked 13 Times Last Year

“It seems not even the high-tech NASA is safe from digital intruders: The space agency’s computer systems were breached by hackers 13 times last year, according to Congressional testimony this week.

‘These incidents spanned a wide continuum from individuals testing their skill to break into NASA systems, to well-organized criminal enterprises hacking for profit, to intrusions that may have been sponsored by foreign intelligence services seeking to further their countries’ objectives,’ said Paul Martin, NASA’s inspector general, in his Congressional testimony released on Wednesday.

‘Some of these intrusions have affected thousands of NASA computers, caused significant disruption to mission operations, and resulted in the theft of export-controlled and otherwise sensitive data, with an estimated cost to NASA of more than $7 million,’ he continued.

Martin gave Congress detailed information about some of the attacks.

In one instance, the agency discovered late last year an intrusion into its system by hackers working through a China-based IP address. Martin said that the hackers gained full access to the network of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, allowing them to view, copy, delete and otherwise tamper with classified information.

Before closing the door behind them, the hackers uploaded software allowing them access to other NASA systems and managed to adeptly hide their digital tracks.

In a separate event, hackers managed to grab computer access codes from more than 150 NASA employees. According to Martin, the agency failed to move quickly enough to ensure that those hackers wouldn’t be able to use the codes to gain access to its networks.”

Test them now! Here’s how!

Test Your ISP – Are You Constrained?

This is a great series of tests to see if your ISP is limiting your bandwidth. Those “so-and-sos” may be constraining what YOU are paying for! Free yourself from bandwidth tyranny! (Hey, I get radical when it comes to my bandwidth!)

“If this is something that you are passionate about, you may consider joining one of the various net-neutrality groups around the internet. Again, a quick search for ‘net neutrality’ will return some great resources and groups to help you get involved in fighting things like ISP throttling.”

There will be at least nine versions of Windows 8 according to the Windows 8 registry!

Windows 8 registry shows nine separate flavors to choose from

• Windows 8 Starter
• Windows 8 Home Basic
• Windows 8 Home Premium
• Windows 8 Professional
• Windows 8 Professional Plus
• Windows 8 Enterprise
• Windows 8 Enterprise Eval
• Windows 8 Ultimate
• Windows 8 ARM edition

“We will of course point out that this is from the Consumer Preview, so not necessarily a final tally, and the Enterprise Eval version is of course just for trials, but it’s interesting to note the addition of Professional Plus. Office 2010 Pro Plus adds in extra integration with Sharepoint and Office Communications Server, leaving us to wonder if this flavor of Windows 8 won’t offer some similar collaborative tools. And then there’s just that one, lonely ARM edition, which could leave non-x86 hardware buyers out of the cross-shopping fun altogether.”

You have to have a decent password to be secure! But, most folks don’t!

‘Password1’ is the No. 1 Password Employed by Business Users

The business world has a password problem—starting with the fact that the No. 1 computer password employed by business users is, wait for it: ‘Password1’. Unfortunately, that’s just the most cringe-worthy example of bad enterprise security cited by Trustwave in its recently released Global Security Report for 2012.

Why ‘Password1’? Because ‘it satisfies the default Microsoft Active Directory complexity setting,’ the IT security research firm noted. In other words, it’s got a capitalized letter, a number, and the requisite number of characters to qualify under basic password security settings.

Here’s the link to the Windows 8 Customer Preview Version. By the way, Microsoft noted via Twitter, that there were over one million downloads of the Preview on the first day of availability.

Here’s a neat tip I discovered from using Fedora as my client. When you get a “hung” application window, and want to have a graphical way to “kill” the process without any tedious mucking around at the command line, try this:

Install the xorg-x11-apps:

sudo yum install xorg-x11-apps

Then go to “System Settings” (click on your name in the upper right-hand corner, hover over and click on “System Settings”)

Select “Keyboard” –> “Shortcuts” –> “Custom Shortcuts”

Hit the “+” in the right side panel to add a custom keyboard shortcut, for “Name:” enter “xkill” and for “Command:” enter “xkill” and click “Apply.”

Hover over the “Disabled” at the end of the bar on the right side panel of your new shortcut, click it, then do a keyboard combination… I used “Control-F12” … you can then exit out. When you have a session hung, you can hit “Control-F12” and your cursor will change to an “X” … whereever you click the “X” (whatever window) will be “killed.” Enjoy!

The latest edition of LibreOffice is out! This page gives you a rundown of the new features in this release of LibreOffice (version 3.5)

LibreOffice 3.5 New Features

“LibreOffice is the power-packed free, libre and open source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and GNU/Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base. Support and documentation is free from our large, dedicated community of users, contributors and developers. You, too, can get involved!”

My very favorite video/audio player in the universe is VLC! And, version 2.0 is out… a big milestone! Download and install NOW!

VLC Player 2.0 from VideoLAN

“VLC 2.0 ‘Twoflower’ is a major new version of our popular media player.

With faster decoding on multi-core, GPU, and mobile hardware and the ability to open more formats, notably professional, HD and 10bits codecs, 2.0 is a major upgrade for VLC.
Twoflower has a new rendering pipeline for video, with higher quality subtitles, and new video filters to enhance your videos.

It supports many new devices and BluRay Discs (experimental).

Completely reworked Mac and Web interfaces and improvements in the other interfaces make VLC easier than ever to use.

Twoflower fixes several hundreds of bugs, in more than 7000 commits from 160 volunteers.”

New Features:

“VIDEO
Rewritten video output core and modules, allowing subpicture blending in GPU.
Shader support in the OpenGL output, for colorspace conversion, including 10bits.
New video outputs for Windows 7, Android, iOS and OS/2.
New debanding, grain, denoising and anti-flickering filters.
New deinterlacing filter, including an Inverse Telecine algorithm.

AUDIO
New resamplers for higher quality audio.
New dynamic range compressor and karaoke filters.
Simplification of the audio core for faster processing.
New audio outputs for iOS, Android and OS/2.

FORMATS
Multi-threaded decoding for H.264, MPEG-4/Xvid and WebM.
Support for 10bits codecs, WMV image and some other codecs.
Rewritten support for images, including jpeg, png, xcf, bmp…
Important changes in RealVideo and Real Format support.
CrystalHD cards and Android OpenMAX support for hardware decoding.

INPUT AND DEVICES
Experimental support for BluRay discs:
– Menus are deactivated in this release (will come soon).
– AACS and BD+ DRM libraries and keys are not shipped, for legal reasons.
Support for SDI capture cards and QTKit devices.
Support for new adaptive streaming protocols, like HLS and DASH.

FOR MAC USERS
Completely new, single window interface:
– Available in 2 colors: Lion grey and QTX black.
– Extensions support and better Lion integration.
Support for all QTKit devices through qtcapture and qtsound modules.
Continued support for X 10.5 and PPC users (1080p and ProRes on Dual-G5!).

FOR ANIME FANS
Vastly improved MKV demuxer.
Rewritten linked segments and ordered chapter files support.
Correct support for FLAC, RV and Hi10p in MKV.
Rewritten seeking support in cue files.
Various ASS subtitles improvements.

FOR PROFESSIONAL USERS
Support for ProRes 422 and 4444, AVC/Intra.
Support for Jpeg-2000, Dirac and DNxHD/VC-3 in 10bits.
Support for EBU subtitles (stl) and EIA-608.
SDI and HD-SDI card support for input on Linux.
New Dirac/VC-2 encoder, faster than the previous one.

FOR DEVELOPERS
libVLC, libVLCcore and libcompat have switched from GPL to LGPLv2.1+.
New libVLC examples are available: media player, photobooth and mediainfo clones.
New JSON requests on the web interface to control running VLC instances.
Implementation of the MPRIS2 interface to control media players.
VLC’s web plugins have been rewritten for better integration and stability in all browsers.”