Category: Computers, Science & Technology

Every year there are two hacking contests one is called “Pwnium” and the other is “Pwn2Own.” This year there is four million dollars in prize money between the two contests!

So far, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Google Chrome, Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader have already been hacked. Now, at first, this may seem like really bad news! However, it really isn’t. The idea behind these hacking competitions is for top level hackers to come together in teams to try to hack the security of popular software packages. These hacking attempts, if successful, are then documented, and the vendors can quickly close those “holes.” So, in the long run, it hardens the software that we use as consumers, and makes it harder for regular hackers to break through the security of these packages.

Google Chrome and its Chromium operating system, used in their Chromebooks, proved to be very secure but still “hack-able.” However, Google moved quickly to close the holes that were found; making Google Chrome, and their Chromium operating system, still highly secure! This, combined with the fact that they update their software automatically, without user intervention, provides a very secure experience for the user.

The hacking team from China took down Safari and Adobe Flash on the second day of the Pwn2Own” event, and, they also completed the contest with a successful zero day exploit of Adobe Flash. Thier hacking team, called the “Keen team,” earned a $40,000 prize for Safari, and $75,000 for Flash. They said they’ll donate a portion of their winnings to charities representing families of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370.

These “white hat” hackers provide a service to the computing community to help us harden software. And this is just more evidence that their heart is in the right place!

Some rumors are coming up prior to Microsoft’s build 2014 conference which will be held in San Francisco. The code name for the next version of Windows, which will be called Windows 9 at release, is “Threshold.” The Windows PC client, the Windows server, and the Windows phone and Xbox are all integrated to a degree, and will be part of this release.

Windows 9 will come in three separate types: there will be a “modern” consumer SKU, a traditional PC SKU, and a traditional enterprise business SKU. The “modern” SKU will be focused on delivering Windows RT apps in this version will be available for ARM” and Intel-based devices but won’t be optimized to run desktop Win32 apps.

For those of us that were hoping that Windows 9 would free us from the evil “Metro” interface, don’t hold your breath! Microsoft is still trying to shove this down our throats, even though they will make it somewhat easier to have a more traditional interface; they are only tweaking Metro and adding an updated version to the Metro design language interface. So, Microsoft is still trying to force us to do their bidding when it comes to how we use our computers! Hopefully, the upshot of this is that we’ll see more people, and perhaps even more businesses, seriously consider Linux as an option for their desktops!

It amazes me that Microsoft is arrogant enough to believe that their customers will swallow anything that they throw out there, and not consider other options. Essentially, they’re digging their own grave! If they would just give us an interface that we can work with on a regular desktop, they could hold on to their large market share for PC operating systems. After all, all they would have to do is create an option within Control Panel to select a business desktop with a more Windows 7 like interface or, alternatively, provide an option for the fluffy, boxy, ugly “Metro” interface that they’re trying to foist upon us! But, apparently they’re not that smart.

Google Play is having it’s second anniversary this week as well, and to celebrate, Google is having a sale on some Play Store items. Check them out! They are different depending on where you live, so you will have to check it out yourself!

And, I know, some of you don’t care. Like, mainly the Gamemaster!

The Raspberry Pi computer had its second birthday this week. The Raspberry Pi Foundation, with help from Broadcom, is working toward an Open Source graphics driver for the Raspberry Pi computer.

This new graphics driver is supposed to enable hardware-accelerated graphics for Linux, Android and other operating systems, running on the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is promising a $10,000 reward for the first person making Quake III run at a decent framerate on its hardware.

I also saw an article this week that reported that someone had hooked a lot of Raspberry Pi machines together into one array that allowed that new configuration to be essentially a supercomputer. There’s a lot of cool stuff happening in the Raspberry Pi computing space.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve ordered the Raspberry Pi, and it came in… I just haven’t had a chance to play with it yet; and when I do, I hope to do a walk-through report on that, either on the Dr. Bill show or on the Hand Held Hack… I’m not sure which. So, stay tuned for that!

So, it was announced this week that Windows 8.1, Update 1 has leaked into the public. The odd thing is, it seems to have been leaked by Microsoft… from their servers! How does that work?

On Wednesday of this week, Microsoft released the RTM of Windows 8.1, Update 1; the update includes changes to the Metro UI, the taskbar bar appearing in the Modern environment with a permanent shutdown button on the start screen, and some other minor fixes.

Microsoft is also ending support for Windows XP next month, which means that Microsoft will not be providing any further security updates for Windows XP.

So, now’s the time to move on to a more secure operating system! Since Windows XP currently holds just under 33% of the market share of all operating systems, obviously, a large group of users are at risk! This means that this group of users had better move on to either a later version of Windows, or move to the free Linux operating system, of which there are many distributions, but as you know, my favorite is Linux Mint!

Though, I must it admit that with my new MacBook Pro, I’m getting very close to recommending that people move to Mac as heartily as I recommend that they moved to Linux! (What can I say? I’m excited!)

Well, hopefully all of you survived the Great Ice Storm of 2014. It’s nice to have power back on, because one cannot use one’s neat electronic toys if there is no power! And, of course, I had just gotten in a ton of really cool electronic toys, and was looking forward to using them, when in fact, we lost our power. Of course, we also lost our heat, everything in our refrigerator and freezer was at risk; and I actually thought of that later on! After, of course, fretting over the fact that I would not get to play with my electronic toys!

But, after a night in a nearby hotel, which did have power, and in which I could use my toys, all is well! And, there is some excitement in the fact that when you return home all of the power is on, and life is good! So all in all, an interesting experience, but one I’m not looking forward to experiencing again for quite some time, if ever. In fact, I would be up for just missing it altogether!

So, I trust all is well with our readers, and netcast viewers. I know that not all of you live in the area in which I reside, but if perchance you do, I hope you have power. More power, more power!

I know that there was a report that 50% of all households in our area were without power, and we were among that 50% that had none, but, now we do! Good deal!

What I have talked about for all these years, dreamed of, conspired about… and so forth! A genuine, official, brand new Macbook Pro! It came in this afternoon, and is SO cool! And, by this weekend, I will have two 8 gig DIMMs to upgrade it to 16 gig! AWESOMENESS!!!!!

I also got a cool stand for my new, cool Macbook as well! Check it out below!

I told you. The death of Net Neutrality has consequences! We need a content neutral internet!

Is Net Neutrality’s Death Responsible for Slowing Netflix Streaming?

Latin Post – By Robert Schoon – “In recent weeks, Netflix subscribers have noticed that their instant streaming service has increasingly degraded in quality and load time, even some with hefty broadband connections. The big question on everyone’s minds is: does the slow-down have to do with the recent suspension of Net Neutrality, or something else?

Besides lots of grumbles and conversations on Twitter, Netflix itself has confirmed that speeds have degraded among several big broadband internet service providers (ISPs), including Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. Here’s Netflix’s data spanning from Dec. 2013 to Feb. 2014. Those three lowest downward sloping lines are Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast. Verizon Fios is the steepest downward slope (the grey line) in the middle.

Specifically, Netflix reports an average of 14 percent speed degradation in streaming speeds on Verizon FiOS in the last 30 days, according to the Wall Street Journal. For a lot of customers, this means HD streaming has turned into regular definition streaming, and some Netflix users are getting stuck on seemingly infinite buffer.

Now, if you’re not already aware, in January, a U.S. appeals court struck down the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s authority to regulate ISPs on Net Neutrality — the rules that previously disallowed ISPs to throttle certain traffic on their networks. And customers of Verizon, which was the specific contender in that FCC case, have been seemingly the most affected since.

Does this mean Net Neutrality’s (temporary?) death is already being leveraged against Netflix? Is the timing too suspicious, or have we all been watching too much House of Cards, simultaneously degrading our own connection speeds and amplifying our cynical paranoia?

The answer to the first question is a tentative no, but a dose of skepticism about ISPs — and Netflix — is healthy. And we have been watching ‘too much’ House of Cards and other streaming content from Netflix, if ‘too much’ means too much for networks to handle under current arrangements.

Verizon has denied throttling Netflix and other services like Amazon Web Services, saying ‘We treat all traffic equally, and that has not changed’ in a statement, but a dispute between Netflix and Verizon is causing streams to slow down — the connection degradation is just probably not where you think it would be.

Net Neutrality doesn’t allow ISPs to mangle traffic on the so called ‘last mile’ of internet tubing between the ISP and your house, but with Netflix streaming traffic (along with others’) at an all-time high and increasing, the way business has usually been done deep in the internet is changing.

According to the Wall Street Journal report, the internet was historically run on arrangements where huge networks agreed to swap each other’s traffic without charge, assuming that it all evened out in the end. But now that Netflix streaming is eating a huge amount of North America’s downstream traffic every evening — nearly a third of downstream traffic as of late last year — those pro-bono arrangements are being stressed.

Netflix, for example, runs through a middle-man network Cogent, whose traffic has quadrupled in the past half year after Netflix began offering 1080p streaming to its customers. Stressing the networks like Verizon and Comcasts’ traffic that much more, those companies have asked Netflix to pay additional fees for its usage — not for the Net Neutral ‘last mile’ but all the way up the pipe. Instead of throttling users’ connections, ISPs like Verizon have delayed upgrading their networks in an effort to get Netflix to foot the bill that it’s largely running up.

Dan Bowman, chief of internet traffic management company Sandvine Corp., told the WSJ that either side of the dispute could give in a little to make streaming connections better. Verizon could go ahead and upgrade its connections for Cogent’s network traffic, and Netflix could distribute its traffic more to avoid data jams.

Meanwhile, if you’re a savvy Netflix customer who’s frustrated by buffering, don’t pay to upgrade your connection speed (assuming you have a decent broadband connection). Instead, you might want to try using a Virtual Private Network, most of which will be too slow, but some of which have proven to de-throttle Netflix traffic.

Or you could join the petition to put pressure on FCC chairman Tom Wheeler to reclassify ISPs as ‘common carriers’ to exercise more control over issues like this.”

What a neat idea! Control your PC sound volume with your mouse wheel! Awesomeness!

Volumouse v2.01 – Control the sound volume with a wheel mouse

“Volumouse provides you a quick and easy way to control the sound volume on your system – simply by rolling the wheel of your wheel mouse.
It allows you to define a set of rules for determining when the wheel will be used for changing the sound volume. For example: You can configure Volumouse to use your mouse wheel for volume control when the Alt key is hold down, when the left mouse button is down, when the mouse cursor is over the taskbar, and so on…

When the conditions that you define are not satisfied, your mouse wheel will be used for the regular scrolling tasks, exactly as before.”