Category: Computers, Science & Technology

A worm attacked 10s of thousands of Twitter users, but Twitter now says the network is clear.

Twitter all clear after worm wave

“Twitter has been given the all clear after a worm infected ‘tens of thousands of users’. But experts say the attack could have been much worse. Over the weekend, a self-replicating computer program, or worm, began to infect profiles on the social network. The worm was set up to promote a Twitter rival site, showing unwanted messages on infected user accounts. Michael Mooney, a 17-year-old US student, told the Associated Press he created the worm to promote his site. Mooney, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, said he wanted to expose vulnerabilities in Twitter. He told AP: ‘I really didn’t think it was going to get that much attention, but then I started to see all these stories about it and thought, ‘Oh, my God’.’ The worm worked by encouraging users to click on a link to the rival Twitter site, called StalkDaily.com. Once the link was clicked, infected users themselves automatically began to send out messages to friends, promoting the site. No personal or sensitive information, such as passwords, was compromised in the attacks, according to Twitter, which has more than seven million users.”

I have a Storm… and I love it! But, there may be an improved version coming down the pike!

Rumors gel around a possible BlackBerry Storm sequel

“As Research In Motion’s first all-touchscreen BlackBerry, and one of the ‘Big Four’ in the touchphone market that has dominated smartphone sales, the BlackBerry Storm is a formidable device. Director of Research at ChangeWave, Paul Carton, said in a Web conference yesterday, ‘This market is overwhelmingly dominated by two companies: Apple and RIM.’ Nearly all of ChangeWave’s consumer smartphone survey statistics were dominated by the iPhone and the Storm, and by proxy their US carriers, AT&T and Verizon. One figure from the company definitely stood out, though: Most people said their next phone purchase is likely to be a BlackBerry. Some 37% of those surveyed said they were either ‘very likely’ or ‘likely’ to buy a BlackBerry, while only 30% said the same of iPhone. While these figures do not address the Storm directly by name, it is interesting that BlackBerry remains such a strong draw after the Storm was so emphatically panned by the media, and the Bold repeatedly pulled from stores for overheating. Maybe the public is holding out for the Storm to improve in its second generation. On Monday, SlashGear cited ‘a source very close to the issue’ in saying that the second generation BlackBerry Storm will be released in September 2009, complete with Wi-Fi and an improved touchscreen. Today, Dutch site Tweakers said the as-of-yet-unnamed ‘Storm 2’ will include, among other things, ‘a new way of entering text,’ attributing the information to RIM sales Manager Alain Segond von Banchet. Both of these refer to the device’s clickable touchscreen, which works well for big onscreen buttons, but poorly for a small virtual keyboard. The latter of the two rumors includes the additional claim that the ‘Storm 2’ will be sold through Dutch mobile carrier KPN in addition to Vodafone, the current Storm’s exclusive carrier. The Dutch report did not, however, speculate upon whether this will simply be an incremental upgrade or a fully new handset.”

A new version of Internet Explorer … and, it looks better… I still prefer Firefox… but, hey, better is better!

IE 8.0 Web Site

I would suggest upgrading if you do use IE… go for it!

Whoa! The Gamemaster will be hitting me up for this one, I bet! Support for WPA, WiFi, and SD card support… as well as downloadable games… he’ll be all over it!

Nintendo DSi comes to US on April 5

“The DSi has been available in Japan since November, and within the first two days 170,779 units were sold, amounting to more than 85% of the initial shipment, according to Enterbrain. Both of Nintendo’s premier game systems, the Wii and DS, have consistently dominated the video game market in sales, and more than 3.04 million DS units were sold in 2008. Nintendo’s handheld systems are an evolving breed, which go through several iterations before a new generation is released. Pivotal to maintaining this evolutionary flow is backwards compatibility, and the DSi is the first of the DS generation to drop support for the previous generation, the Game Boy Advance. But where it loses the GBA cartridge slot, it has gained an SD slot, which also facilitates a slimmer chassis design and potential for a whole new family of homebrew mods. It also gives the DSi space for downloadable games, which are now available through the DSiWare app store. To connect to Wi-Fi to use the new app store or to play online games, the DSi includes support for WPA security. The DS and DS Lite did not support any security above WEP, so older games reportedly still must connect via WEP to play online, despite the DSi’s support for WPA. The DSi incorporates two cameras into the unit, which offers developers yet another kooky way to control games. The earliest DSi shop games in Japan (region locked) have only just touched upon some of the things that can be done with the cameras. While the DSi includes Photobooth-esque image capture an manipulation software which lets users draw directly on images with the touchscreen, Nintendo has not provided an official list of titles that will be ported over to the American DSi already exploiting the new feature. One title sure to hit US stores is the next sequel in the popular Brain Age series known in Japan as Chotto Brain Training. The DSi will retail for $169.99.”

I found out today, that, contrary to popular opinion… I am NOT an old fogie! What proof, you ask? You none other than TIME magazine itself says so! They have a new article called “Why Facebook Is for Old Fogies.” And, since I am not on Facebook, and have no plans to be on Facebook, I am NOT an old fogie! Infallible logic!

You see, as a web host and webmaster, I am already master of my own domains (get it?!) So, I am down wit’ the “in crowd!”

Why Facebook Is for Old Fogies

“Facebook is five. Maybe you didn’t get it in your news feed, but it was in February 2004 that Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, along with some classmates, launched the social network that ate the world. Did he realize back then in his dorm that he was witnessing merely the larval stage of his creation? For what began with college students has found its fullest, richest expression with us, the middle-aged.”

Author, Lev Grossman, goes on to give his 10 reasons that Facebook is for old fogies… but I especially like number 10:

“10. We’re not cool, and we don’t care. There was a time when it was cool to be on Facebook. That time has passed. Facebook now has 150 million members, and its fastest-growing demographic is 30 and up. At this point, it’s way cooler not to be on Facebook. We’ve ruined it for good, just like we ruined Twilight and skateboarding. So git! And while you’re at it, you darn kids better get off our lawn too.”

Whoa! Last night at precisely 23:31:30 GMT, the official UNIX time read as; “1234567890” – How geeky-cool is that?!?! Dewd! I am totally celebrating!

At the third stroke, the Unix time will be 1234567890

“Ready to party like it’s 1234567890? Computer lovers certainly are. That’s because at precisely 23:31:30 GMT tonight (Friday), the ten-digit clock used by Unix computers – which includes the servers that run everything from the internet to air traffic control – will display all ten decimal digits in sequence. For computer geeks everywhere, this seemingly dubious milestone deserve celebrations just like those that greeted the end of the millennium. Parties are planned around the world from London to New York, to Yerevan in Armenia and Asunción in Paraguay. But after the brief flash of joy, comes the dread. Computer scientists fear the worst for the next major moment in Unix time – some time in the year 2038, when the Unix clock will run out of seconds it can count. On that January day, computers will fail to compute time, and crash. Your computer could shut down. Vehicles may pile up as traffic lights fail. Planes could fall out of the sky. The advice is to party now, because the digital apocalypse may soon be upon us. Understanding how this will happen requires you to do away with your parochial understanding of time, and instead think more like a machine. You, being human, were under the impression that today was merely Friday February 13 in the year of our Lord, 2009. Computers count time differently. They simply count the seconds from ‘Co-ordinated Standard Time,’ or to human beings, the seconds elapsed from midnight, January 1, 1970 – the digital equivalent of the birth of Christ. Unix time is how many seconds there have been since then (not including leap seconds, in case you were wondering). But why is 1234567890 a more significant moment in time than any other sequence of numbers? ‘All calendars are just arbitrary,’ argues Julian Burgess, a web developer from London. ‘Celebrating the millennium – why do that? It was just like any other day, the Earth rotates on its axis and it moves around the Sun. All these things are arbitrary, so for geeks to celebrate Unix time is something for them to enjoy.'”

No… Microsoft would never make a Silverlight for Linux… but Open Source developers would! And here it is:

Moonlight

Moonlight is an Open Source implementation of Silverlight for Linux. Weird, but cool! I have come to prefer Flash, and it is more widely accepted, but it is cool that developers have been able to develop Moonlight!

This free, Open Source Internet TV client is just getting better and better! Miro rocks! Check it out!

Miro 2.0

* “A beautiful, all-new widget based interface
* Browse while you watch– pop out any video to an external window (our number one requested feature)
* Miro is now faster, more responsive, and uses less memory
* You can add streaming sites like Hulu to your sidebar (note: streaming with Flash only works in Windows and OSX)
* You can add download sites like Archive.org or legaltorrents.com to your sidebar and download to Miro with a single click
* Improved playlists
* New compact, sortable list view
* Better audio support”

It looks cool… and I want one! (But then, I wanted the original one and never got around to getting it.) Sigh. Well, hopefully this time I will get it!

Amazon’s Kindle 2

“At Amazon, we’ve always been obsessed with having every book ever printed, and we know that even the best reading device would be useless without a massive selection of books. Today, the Kindle Store has more than 230,000 books available, plus top newspapers, magazines, and blogs. This is just the beginning. Our vision is to have every book ever printed, in any language, all available in under 60 seconds on Kindle. We won’t stop until we get there. Whether you prefer biographies, classics, investment guides, thrillers, or sci-fi, thousands of your favorite books are available, including 103 of 110 books currently found on the New York Times® Best Seller list. New York Times Best Sellers and most new releases are $9.99, and you’ll find many books for less.”

The new version improves scalability, hosting twice as many virtual desktops per server as previous versions, and enhanced graphics capability!

Citrix XenDesktop 3 Enhances Multimedia Experience, Doubles Scalability and Adds Streamed Desktop Support

“Citrix Systems, Inc., the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced Citrix® XenDesktopâ„¢ 3, the newest release of its market-leading desktop virtualization solution. XenDesktop 3, a key component of the Citrix Delivery Centerâ„¢ product family, incorporates several of the company’s new Citrix® HDXâ„¢ technologies (see separate announcement today), giving virtual desktop users a richer “high-definition” experience with enhanced support for multimedia, audio and video. XenDesktop 3 also dramatically improves scalability, hosting twice as many virtual desktops per server as previous versions. And with version 3, XenDesktop becomes the first product on the market to deliver Microsoft® Windows® desktops from a common set of centrally managed images that can be run either in the datacenter (hosted), or directly on a PC or thin client device (local). This new capability gives IT organizations far more flexibility, reducing desktop management costs by making efficient use of distributed processing power across both servers and end point devices.”