NAVNEET MEHRA

Samsung Installs Keylogger on Its Laptops

2011-03-31T03:59:00.000-07:00

PC maker Samsung is in the centre of a security storm after it installed keylogging software onto laptops to let it know what its punters were doing.

A network security expert Mohamed Hassan, who is the founder of NetSec Consulting was stunned to discover keylogging software on two different models of Samsung portable computers, which he purchased.

He then called Samsung to log the incident with Samsung Support Staff. Initially Samsung support staff denied that the spy software was there.

First Samsung changed its story by referring the author to claiming that "all Samsung did was to manufacture the hardware."

When Hassan, said this was unacceptable point, he was routed to some other Support personal, who confirmed that Samsung knowingly put this software on the laptop to, as he put it, "monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used."

It could cause huge problems for Samsung. Not only is spying on your customers probably illegal, but will also result in decline in its potential customers. The existence of key-loggers inside laptops

This keylogger which is found is named Starkeylogger. Many might be thinking over what a keylogger is. For the moment , keeping aside all the if an buts, what organizations and individuals with Samsung systems should back up the important data(if any) and then format the system.Theinvestif\gation has been launched by Samsung for this case.

Until it is cleared up, it is unlikely that any one will want to buy a  Samsung product.

Network World confirmed the news.

Manage, Share, and Discover Books with Shelfari

2011-03-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

I'm an avid reader. And the older I get, the harder it becomes for me to remember every book I've read. At the same time, I want to get recommendations from sources other than Amazon: friends, people who share my tastes, etc.

Shelfari is a free service that lets you build a virtual bookshelf of stuff you've read, see what your friends are reading, discover popular titles in specfic genres, and join discussion groups.

In other words, at the risk of overusing the metaphor, it's kind of like Facebook for bibliophiles.

After signing up for Shelfari, you can browse or search its library to find books to add to your virtual shelf. For any book you choose, you have the option of rating, tagging, and/or reviewing it. You can also mark it as something you've read, are reading, or are planning to read. All this requires just a few easy clicks.

Shelfari is also heavy on community features, stuff like which books got the highest ratings and most comments for the day, members who added the same books as you, and group categories ranging from Authors & Writing to World Literature & Culture.

Of course, Shelfari is by no means the only book-lovers site of its kind. Another popular destination is Goodreads, though I find that site's interface much less intuitive and attractive.

I do wish Shelfari offered some kind of integration with Facebook and/or Twitter. Even so, it's a great destination for anyone who loves books. If you want to "friend" me on the service, look for user justrick.

Syncables 360 Premium Keeps Data Synced on PCs, Macs, and Smartphones

2011-03-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

When you have multiple computers and smartphones that you use regularly, making sure that the right file is on the right device at the right time--and in sync with all other devices--can seem to be an impossible task. Syncables 360 Premium ($50, buy-only) aims to make it a simple, automatic one, and adds some nice extras as well.

Syncables 360 Premium syncs multiple computers, but they'll need to be on the same network or use USB as a go-between; it can't synchronize over the Internet.

Syncables 360 Premium automatically synchronizes files and folders among multiple computers and devices, including PCs, Macs, Linux computers, and Blackberry and Windows Mobile smartphones. You can do it over a network or via a USB cable.

It's simple to use and set up, and it presents all of your syncing options in a pleasing, well-thought out interface. Syncables 360 Premium does more than just basic synchronization. It also migrates data between computers, previews media files, backs up files to a USB drive or external hard drive, and lets you share media on social networking sites such as Facebook and Flickr.

Syncables 360 Premium joins the throng in an increasingly crowded market niche. Notable syncing tools competitors include SugarSync and the beta of the newest version of Windows Live Sync. In one way, the free versions of both SugarSync and Windows Live Sync are superior to Syncables 360 Premium, because both of those free services don't just synchronize folders between computers--they also back up the files to 2GB of free online storage (more storage is available for a fee). So if you only want file synchronization, you'd be better off with one of those free services.

Syncables 360 Premium has one more drawback as well, and it's a major one: It won't synchronize over the Internet. You can only do it via a direct connection such as a cable, or over a home or business network.

But Syncables 360 Premium offers plenty of tools those pieces of software don't offer, such as media previewing, synchronizing contacts, data migration, and the ability to easily share photos on social networking sites including Flickr and Facebook. So if you need those features, and don't need the ability to synchronize over the Internet, Syncables 360 Premium is worth it. Otherwise, you'd be better off with a free solution.

Note that Syncables 360 Premium works with three computers. If you need to synchronize more than that, you can buy the Syncables 360 Home Network version, which can sync up to five computers, for $70.

Enough with the elitist App nonsense

2010-07-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

Usually, my co-blogger Garett Rogers and I don’t land too far from each other in terms of our views or we cover Google from such different angles that it really doesn’t matter. However, two of his last posts have so thoroughly torqued my twister (and, I think, are indicative of a particular point of view held by a subset of programmers and users) that I had to respond. Here’s the deal, folks: Apps don’t lack value just because they’re developed by non-programmers, nor are the ubiquitous body-function Apps that are easy to find in both the Apple and Android App repositories completely without value. Here’s why:

This all began when Google opened up Android App development to non-programmers with their App Inventor tool. I hailed it as an incredible educational tool. Garett, like many others (the link, by the way is to a nicely balanced TechCrunch article that deals with both points of view) felt that it would
degrade the Android Marketplace, “making tools that encourage people to create crappy meow apps, [instead of giving] developers better tools to build great apps.”

Then, Saturday saw another pot shot at the Android Market. Garett cites Android Pit’s ranking and download data as evidence that only 6250 Apps in the Android MarketPlace are “good.” He goes on to reference App Inventor again:

That’s about 7% of apps. As we start seeing more submitted from App Inventor, it’s feasible that number will drop even lower.

Really? I suppose that might be true if one sticks with Android Pit’s data as a measure of goodness. Since Garett in particular used 50 downloads as his minimum number to create his pool of potentially good apps. Since App Inventor lets a teacher create an interactive application for his or her class, then the 28 downloads from his students would leave him out of the running. Does that mean his App isn’t good?

It lets me create an App (just as soon as Google processes my invite, hint, hint) that shows my 8 month-old daughter either pictures of our chickens or pictures of her brothers (the two things in the world that make her happy during a meltdown) with the slide of a finger, keeping the phone from turning off the screen in the midst of said meltdown. Will anyone else want to be able to show their 8 month old pictures of my chickens? Probably not, but this little App will have value to me. Would it be “good” by Garett’s reckoning? No. Nowhere close.

The strength of Android has always been its openness. Even the closed and tightly controlled Apple App Store has its share of crap applications that don’t have obvious value. And yet, they exist, people download them, and, in some cases, people buy them. This is what happens in a free market economy. As ZDNet Editor-in-Chief, Larry Dignan, put it,

However, the beauty here is that useless is in the eye of the beholder. Now I’m never going for the Wonder Bread app, but some sandwich junkie may think it’s the best thing ever. There’s something to be said for allowing anyone to create a quiz app (right). Sure, there will be clunkers, but open up mobile apps and let the marketplace demand decide.

Perhaps more importantly, App Inventor gives us the chance to make our phones do precisely what we want them to do, even without any substantial programming skill. Whether the Apps thrive in the Marketplace may often be irrelevant. Do you remember the first time you got a Word macro to create several document features automatically? Those features or that simple macro may have been worthless for everyone in the world besides you and, if you were lucky, a few grateful co-workers. But the power in the hands of non-programmers was profound.

App Inventor is a great democratizer in a world of Apps. Microsoft is getting in on it in their own way with their KittyHawk project and the entire Web 2.0 revolution made web content creation available to those without knowledge of sophisticated scripting, let alone HTML. Opening a tool to the masses and making it useful and accessible to those who can identify a need and meet it themselves without a team of programmers behind them is not a new idea. It’s simply new in the brave new world of smartphones.

I have no trouble finding countless useful and well-designed Apps in the Android Market. Just like any other Google search, you need to separate the wheat from the chaff. However, the ability to create my own Apps, whether for instructional purposes, to gain additional insight into Android, to solve a particular and specific problem just for my own designs, or to bring the next great App to Android should never be viewed as a bad thing. Don’t worry - programmers will still have plenty of work to do. But for anyone with some reasonable degree of computer savvy to be able to exploit the extraordinary power of current and future generations of mobile devices is nothing short of revolutionary.

Get Started With Paint.NET

2010-07-18T10:45:00.000-07:00

I routinely use high-powered photo editing programs like Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, and Corel Paint Shop Pro. But you can get away with spending a lot less on photo editing software. You can spend nothing at all, in fact. In the past I've mentioned GIMP--a popular free, open source program. This week, I'll show you how to get started with Paint.NET as well.

Paint.NET got its start as a senior design project at Washington State University, where it was envisioned as a replacement for the Paint program in Windows. It has evolved significantly since then, though. It remains free, and today has all the basic rudiments of photo editing programs, like layers, effects, and even support for Photoshop-like plug-ins. You can download the latest version of Paint.NET from PCWorld, but you'll want to bookmark the official Paint.NET Web site as well, since there are forums, tutorials, and plug-ins available there. (You can also get to the Web site from Paint.NET's help menu.)

A Quick Tour

The interface should look pretty familiar to anyone who has used a program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. Nothing, though, is locked in place. The standard toolbar, for example--usually located on the left side of the screen--can be moved around anywhere in the program window. In fact, if you don't maximize the Paint.NET window, you can drag toolbars and tool palettes out of the program window completely.

The toolbar has all the basics. You'll find selection tools, a magic wand, and a clone tool, for example. When you choose a tool, look at the toolbar at the top of the screen for options to customize it, such as controlling the size of the brush. But making a complex selection with Paint.NET can be tricky, since there's no "magnetic" selections--just a freehand lasso.

As you make changes to your photo, you might notice the Undo window at the top right. It tracks everything you do, so you can undo edits one at a time, or undo a slew of actions all at once--all the way back to the first thing you did to the photo, if you want to.

Working With Layers

Like any full-featured photo editor, Paint.NET gives you the ability to combine photos using layers. There isn't an "adjustment layer" tool for making edits to a photo, but you can simulate Photoshop-like adjustment layers pretty effectively. Just duplicate your photo in a new layer (choose Layers, Duplicate Layer) and then choose one of the options from the Adjustments or Effects menus. You can choose Adjustments, Curves, for example, and tweak the photo. Then, in the Layers palette at the bottom right of the screen, click Properties and use the slider to adjust the opacity of the top layer. (Note that Paint.NET uses the geeky range of 0-255 instead of 0-100, but the effect is the same.)

Play With Plug-Ins

You can use plug-ins to add a wealth of new capabilities to Paint.NET. To get to plug-ins, choose Help, Plug-ins from the menu in Paint.NET, which opens your browser to the Paint.NET Web site's plug-in page.

For example, if you shoot using your camera's RAW mode, the first plug-in you'll want to install is a RAW plug-in so you can open those images in Paint.NET. To get to that quickly, choose Plugins Index, show the Alphabetical List of Plugins Q-Z, and scroll down to the entries for RAW tools. There are a few to choose from, but I've had the best luck with RawReader. To install it, download the RawReader zip file, which contains three DLL files. Then open the program location for Paint.NET (probably c:\program files\Paint.NET) and drag those DLLs to the folder called FileTypes. Restart Paint.NET and you should be able to open most RAW files. Installing any plug-in is basically that easy--just drag the DLL to the Paint.NET folder or one of its subfolders like Effects or FileTypes.

Is there something in particular you'd like to do with Paint.NET? Send me your questions and I will answer them in a future Digital Focus.

Hot Pic of the Week

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

Google Calendar: Sync Outlook or Your Phone, Add Features

2010-07-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

A few months back I told you how to add events to Google Calendar by sending text messages from your phone. Since then I've discovered more ways to get calendar and contact data into Google Calendar, Contacts, and Gmail. Read on for a whole new crop of tips.

Sync Outlook with Your Google Calendar

Most of my calendar data lives in Outlook. Not by choice, mind you, but because that's just where it has accumulated over the years.

I'd rather use Google Calendar, which is more versatile and less, well, Outlooky. Just one problem: how do I move my data from the latter to the former? And, just as important, how can I keep the two entities in sync?

Surprisingly few people know that Google offers a solution: the aptly named Google Calendar Sync. This free utility runs under Windows and automatically keeps Google Calendar and your Outlook calendar in sync.

That means you can enter an appointment in one spot and it'll auto-magically appear in the other--and vice versa. But you also have the option of sticking with a one-way sync, like copying all your Outlook appointments to GCal but not copying GCal appointments to Outlook.

Google Calendar Sync is compatible with Windows XP and Vista (though in my experience it works fine with Windows 7 as well). It requires Outlook 2003 or 2007--I'm not sure if it's compatible with Outlook 2010.

Setup is a snap:

Download and run the utility.
Enter your Google account info.
Choose your sync option (one way or two way).
Specify how often the utility should sync your calendars (the default is every two hours).

That's it! The first sync takes a couple minutes; after that, it's virtually instantaneous. Now you can use both calendars however you see fit, all the while keeping both in sync.

Sync Google Calendar With Your Smartphone

One of the things I love about Google Calendar is that it requires no desktop component. Sure, you can sync it with Outlook, but not everyone needs or wants a program like that just to manage appointments.

Indeed, more and more people prefer to keep their calendars on their mobile phones, just as they do their address books.

If you do use Outlook, you've probably already configured it to sync with your phone. If not, or if, like me, you're trying to migrate away from that unwieldy beast, look no further than Google Sync--a free service that syncs mobile phones with Google Calendar.

And not just Google Calendar, but also Google Contacts and Gmail. The service works with BlackBerry, iPhone, and Nokia S60 devices. (Why not Android? Because Google's mobile OS already syncs with the various Google services, natch. As for the Palm Pre and Pixi, they can sync with Google right out of the box.)

Google provides all the instructions you need for configuring and using Google Sync, so I won't rehash them here. My goal is simply to explain why it's a good idea.

If you're already a Google Calendar user, it should be pretty obvious: Sync brings a copy of your schedule to your phone--and keeps both versions up to date. Handy!

If you're not a Google Calendar user, Sync effectively gives you an online backup of your schedule--something that could prove invaluable if your phone gets broken, lost, stolen, etc.

Plus, there's much to be said for having a calendar that's accessible from any Web-enabled device (desktop, netbook, iPad, etc.). Same goes for your contacts.

Add a 'Next Meeting' Box to Google Calendar

Now that you know how to sync smartphones and Outlook with Google Calendar, let's talk about some other ways to make it more useful.

Like many of Google's apps and services, Calendar offers a "labs" section where you can find various tweaks and enhancements that are still in the testing stages. One of my favorites is Next Meeting, which adds a box that displays--you guessed it--your next scheduled appointment. It's a tiny change, but a very practical one.

To enable Next Meeting, sign into Google Calendar, then click the little green beaker that appears in the upper-right corner of the page. That'll take you to the Labs page. Scroll down almost all the way to the bottom, find Next Meeting, click Enable, and then click the Save button at the bottom.

That's all there is to it! Now, when you look at your calendar, you'll see the new box in the lower right corner. It shows the next scheduled entry in your calendar and a countdown timer.

Like I said, it's a tiny tweak--but definitely one worth making.

Apple's Answer to User Gripes: A Giveaway

2010-07-18T10:43:00.001-07:00

Apple Friday responded to the controversy surrounding its flawed antenna design by using a classic public relations maneuver: giving people free stuff.

In his attempts to appease critics who say that the iPhone 4's poor antenna location makes it more likely to drop calls than other mobile devices, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the company would give free rubber bumper cases to all iPhone 4 users or would give iPhone 4 users full refunds if they weren't happy with the device. Consumer Reports said this week that the rubber cases solved the signal problems caused during tests when users put their hands over the phone antennae.

iPhone rules the smartphone roost

So far, reaction to Apple's bumper giveaway has been mostly positive. Ars Technica, which has been critical of Apple during the whole antenna ordeal, now says that giving away bumper cases is a step in the right direction for the company.

"We called Apple's iPhone bumpers a ripoff at $30, but it's hard to argue with free," writes Jacqui Cheng. "Those of us on staff who already have bumpers plan to apply for the refund."

Computerworld's Sharon Machlis also gives Apple kudos for offering users free bumpers, but scratched her head at the company's slow response. She singles out Jobs' "tendency to want to control all aspects of the narrative around his company's products" as a possible reason why it took Apple so long to acknowledge the controversy. Even so, she says that Friday's announcement will go a long way toward easing user anger over the device's antenna woes.

"Whatever the reason, Apple has finally done the right thing for its customers," she says. "Today's announcement that iPhone 4 users will be able to request a free case to solve reception issues should get Apple out from under the deluge of negative publicity it's suffered over the issue."

The Huffington Post's Larry Magid also says that he's satisfied with Apple's free-bumper fix but is also taking issue with Jobs' assertion today that a lot of other smartphones on the market have signal strength problems if you hold your hand up over the antenna.

"I was pretty pleased with Apple's response except for one thing," he says. "Jobs spent a fair amount of time claiming that other phones have similar problems. According to the New York Times live blog he showed a BlackBerry Bold, Droid Eris and other phones dropping bars when gripped… I'm not sure how true that is. I've used a BlackBerry Bold and never noticed that problem and although I haven't tried the Droid Eris, I've used many Android phones including the Droid and Droid X and have never encountered a 'grip of death.'"

Investors were also apparently satisfied with Apple's fix, as the company's shares climbed in the wake of the announcement, rising by 0.2% immediately following the press conference. As the Wall Street Journal has noted, Apple shares have declined overall by around 7% since the release of the iPhone 4 last month.

But while the reaction around the Web and the markets has been mostly positive to Apple's offer, not everyone is quite so sanguine. TGDaily's Trent Nouveau called Jobs "arrogant" and fumed that the company thought it could appease users with a "bumper bribe."

"According to the unrepentant Jobs, the iPhone antenna is still one of the 'most advanced' ever designed for a smartphone," he fumes. "Is it just me, or are those Evo 4G and Motorola X smartphones looking really good right about now!?"

Should Anonymous Comments be a Right?

2010-07-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

Should people be allowed to comment anonymously online? That question is currently making its way through the U.S. legal system. A New York couple has issued dragnet subpoenas to Google and Yahoo demanding the identities of users behind 10 email accounts, 30 blog operators, website administrators, and the identities of anyone who had ever commented on those sites. That's hundreds of people! Riding to the rescue of our privacy and freedom are our heroes -- the EFF.

Miriam and Michael Hersh allege a "sweeping conspiracy led by family members and their acquaintances to accuse the Plaintiffs of mistreating their children and to cause a public controversy." This couple who, among other complaints, allege "intentional infliction of emotional distress" are the parents who made headlines in 2008 when news reports were published saying they had their then 16-year-old son, Isaac, taken to a privately owned correctional institution in Jamaica.

But my concern is not with the reason people were writing the anonymous comments. I'm alarmed over the possible consequences to privacy because of these wide-sweeping "dragnet" subpoenas. So is the EEF.

"The First Amendment protects individuals' right to speak anonymously and forces litigants to justify any attempts to unmask anonymous critics," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "Litigants cannot forcibly identify entire communities of online speakers -- which include many speakers who no one would claim did anything wrong -- simply because the litigants are curious."

The EFF urges the court to protect privacy and anonymity. The EFF's motion to quash states, "Under the broad protections of the First Amendment, speakers have not only a right to publicly express criticism but also the right to do so anonymously. Accordingly, the First Amendment requires that those who seek to unmask online speakers (critics or otherwise) demonstrate a compelling need for such identity-related information before obtaining such discovery. No such need is implicated in this case."

If anonymity is allowed to be pierced in this case, it could change our lives. Who would be targeted next? Trolls? Flamers? People who disagree? If this is allowed to go forward, users on Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon, Twitter, Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, political commenters - users anywhere could be targeted next.

"Overbroad subpoenas targeting anonymous speakers without cause naturally creates a chilling effect that may discourage others from exercising their constitutional rights to participate in conversations that take place online," said Zimmerman. "We are asking the court to enforce these reasonable safeguards so that the rights of innocent speakers do not become collateral damage in a dispute between others."

Apart from identity-related information, the Plaintiffs seek the content of stored communications with an ISP or electronic communications facility. From Google, the Plaintiff wants all documents relating or referring to a list of sites, blogs, pages and/or groups. From Yahoo, the Plaintiffs wants all documents relating or referring to http://geocities.com/saveisaac. Furthermore, the Plaintiffs request all documents relating to and referring to, meaning email communications as well.

The EFF's motion to quash concludes with: "By targeting entire forums in which a wide range of topics are discussed, Plaintiffs attempt to take a shortcut through the legal rights of the forum hosts and their participants. Fortunately, state and federal law bars such attempts."

We will be watching as this case could change history. If comments are not libel or death threats, need the commenter worry about their life being probed and their identity revealed?

Mobile Broadband Users Clueless Data Hogs

2010-07-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

Research by the broadband website, revealed that of those that are aware of their mobile data usage, 11 percent use up to 1GB, while 13 percent use up to 5GB.

Just under one in ten (nine percent) said they use between 5 and 10GB of data per month, while 14 percent get through 10GB or more of data per month.

"Consumers misunderstanding data limits is unfortunately common. Many customers are paying too much for their mobile broadband data tariff. We're talking about thousands of customers who could probably halve their mobile internet bill and see no difference in their online usage," said Broadband Genie editor Chris Marling.

Marling said that with a massive range of deals available, currently from USD$53.7 (£35) per month for 20GB of data to as little as USD$15.35 (£10) per month for just 1GB, consumers need to be aware of their usage, or literally pay for the consequences.

"Many people wont think to check their bill unless it's higher than normal - if it's just the amount they expect, they don't think to see how close they are to their limit," he said.

"We strongly advise people to go back over their bills to see how much they could potentially save, either by reducing their tariff or even going to a pay-as-you-go deal."

Firm promises new take on containerized data centers

2010-07-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

IDG News Service - I/o Data Centers hopes to leapfrog the competition by developing what it claims will be a new, more integrated type of containerized data center, the company said on Friday.

I/o is best known for building and managing traditional brick-and-mortar data centers, but the company has been developing a containerized product for the past year and will make a formal announcement in two weeks, said Kindra Martone, i/o senior vice president and general manager, at the Datacenter Dynamics conference in San Francisco on Friday.

The company isn't giving many details about the product yet, and Martone said it won't be ready to go on sale when the formal announcement is made. I/o Data Centers will share some "high-level" details of what the product will look like and release it at a later date, she said.

The company did give some clues Friday about what it has planned, however. Andreas Zoll, i/o's director of data center engineering, gave a talk at the conference on what the "next generation" of containerized data centers will look like. At the end of Zoll's speech, Martone said the company will sell just such a product.

One difference will be that most current containerized data centers, sold by Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SGI and others, are built using standard 20- and 40-foot shipping containers. The next generation -- and presumably the upcoming product from i/o -- will use a custom-built container that provides more space for the equipment inside, Zoll said.

"You're spending a lot of money on these modular solutions. Do you want to squeeze them into an existing box or build something that really suits your needs? I think we've done a lot of squeezing in the past," he said.

The next generation will also come with the power and cooling equipment built in, he said. Today, customers often locate their containers near an existing data center because they need access to cooling, power and back-up power supplies. For remote locations, customers can also buy cooling gear and generators that are packed into separate containers, then linked to the container with the IT gear.

Future products will have those pieces integrated from the start, allowing them to be more finely tuned for energy efficiency and making the containers "location independent," Zoll said. He suggested they will be delivered as a single unit, rather than multiple containers, but it wasn't entirely clear.

They can also be fitted with satellite hook-ups so they can be remotely managed and monitored. And Zoll even suggested that future containers could be entirely self-sufficient, using compressed gas for power, so they don't need to be operated near a power supply. Martone wouldn't say if that's one of the goals for i/o's own product.

For example, a self-contained data center might provide computing resources on a LAN at a military site or on an oil rig.

The company clearly hopes to shake up the market, but it faces several challenges, including the fact that there are already several established players and it may be some time before i/o's first product goes on sale.

Unlike other makers of containerized data centers, i/o Data Centers doesn't have its own IT equipment to sell. Containers from HP, IBM and others can accommodate third-party equipment, but they often ship filled primarily with the vendor's own gear.

I/o Data Centers could try to promote that as an advantage, saying it doesn't have a vested interest in the equipment it recommends for customers.

The market is still relatively new, Zoll noted. "We're trying to decide whether we're still looking at a niche market or the future of data centers," he said.

IDC has estimated that just 84 containerized data centers will be sold this year, with the figure doubling next year, but it has also said its estimate might be conservative.

One of the main arguments for containers is that they allow a company to add extra compute capacity in less than 100 days, versus a year or more to build a new data center. They also defer the high costs of building a new facility, and they generally can be made much more energy efficient.

Containers are less flexible, however, in terms of the equipment they can contain. And they remain unfamiliar to many data center managers, some of whom question the security of locating a portable data center outdoors.

The five stages of Facebook grief

2010-07-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

application spam or even horrible P.R. from the upcoming movie, "The Social Network." These are short-term annoyances for the company, but not existential threats.

Here's the real problem: Facebook's social network can't mirror the actual social networks, or social groups, that people have. Because of that, users are beginning to notice a curious effect: The more you use Facebook, the less usable it becomes.

It turns out that our feelings about Facebook aren't static. They're evolving in a way that will eventually lead many of us to quit and find something else -- or at least minimize use.

Facebook is structured on the false assumption that you have one social network. But nobody has one social group.

A nine-year-old has at least two -- parents and peers. A teenager has at least three -- add "trusted close friends." And a middle-aged adult has many: Former school-mates, former colleagues (each company is a separate peer group), non-nuclear family, nuclear family, current co-workers, close friends, etc.

While it's true that you belong to all your social groups, you're the only person in the world who does. Each other member of any group does not belong to your other groups. Sooner or later, your social groups are going to clash and you're going to get burned.

Here are three real-life examples (Names have been changed to protect the guilty):

• Maria's son posts a status update: "Having a great time at the beach with the parents!" Maria's boss posts a comment: "Didn't you call in sick?"

• Bill posts 30 pictures from college, and tags friends in the photos. One of those friends is Steve, who is shown drunk and vomiting in the picture that shows up on Steve's "Photos" page. Mom, dad and grandma all acquire a new perspective on the financial help they gave Steve for college.

• Janet, a high school senior, posts a generic comment about her mood, saying "feeling bla today." Then Margaret, a close family friend in the same age group as Janet's parents, comments, "what's wrong, honey?" After that, several of Janet's high school friends post a series of profane, obscene or objectionable comments that humorously suggest causes or cures. Because Margaret commented, all subsequent comments flow into Margaret's Facebook News Feed.

These cases all illustrate the clash of social groups, where a member of one social group gains unnatural access to the conversation of another.

One of the most common clashes of social groups happens when the parents of young people sign up for Facebook, so common that there's a blog devoted to the catastrophe.

A gaming site called Roiworld surveyed 600 teenagers and found that 20% of teens have either dropped Facebook or are using it less. Of those who have abandoned Facebook altogether, 43% say it's because there are "too many adults or older people," their parents are on Facebook or because they're concerned about privacy.

[ See related: Are we burning out on Facebook? ]

Teens are a "leading indicator" here. The rest of us will follow. Facebook users appear to follow a predictable pattern of evolution with their feelings about Facebook, and teenagers are just further along.

Here are the five stages of Facebook grief:

1. Confusion. What's it for? How do I use it? Why would anyone want to post here? Who's seeing this?

2. Discovery. Hey, my high school friends are here. Reading my News Feed actually makes me feel more connected to people. This is actually pretty fun. I look forward to checking Facebook every day. I love this.

3. Utility. Facebook helps me stay connected to former colleagues, which could help me find a job in the future. I learn things about my own kids that is valuable to me that I wouldn't otherwise hear. It's easier to communicate with everyone on Facebook than e-mail, phone calls or any other means. I need this.

4. Embarrassment. Whoa! I did NOT want my co-workers to see the picture of me someone else tagged. Too much personal information in that post! Whoops! I did not mean to offend someone -- I forgot who would be listening.

5. Withdrawal. To avoid problems, I'm going to have to assume that everything I say is public, not private like I used to think. I'll minimize my posts or stop using Facebook altogether.

Facebook's popularity is based on the reality that human beings are social creatures. Staying connected with people we know is innate to us. But maintaining separate social groups that we don't want to clash is also innate.

In the same way that Facebook got popular by satisfying our need to connect, either Facebook or a competitor will get popular by doing something about Stage 5, which is where we're all heading (if not already there.)

How social networks should work

The social network of the future will pattern itself after real-world social groupings. It will enable people to have private, closed, secure conversations within groups, without fear that one social group will gain access to the conversations of another.

One simple approach would be for a social networking site to force you to place each new friend into one or more social groups. Default labels could be "immediate family," "extended family," "former co-workers," "classmates," "best friends," etc.

To successfully post a picture or status update, you would have to click on checkboxes that determined who got it. You should be able to choose any or all groups.

The posts of others could be color-coded to determine which social group they originate with. Comments would stay within the social groups the comment originated in. Related to this, all profile and personal information would have to be checkboxed as well.

I don't know if my imagined scenario is the best one, or even if it would work. The point is that someone must -- and someone will -- create a system for segregating all the social groups in your life. And whoever does that will win over Facebook users spit out the other end of Stage 5.

Such a system is especially urgent because of the rapid growth and coming automation of location services. People will want to automatically share their current location with one or more social groups, but will want to avoid sharing that information with others.

If they can't block some of their social groups, they will block all -- by avoiding an otherwise valuable service.

One interesting facet of the five stages is that along the way, you start to love and need real social networking. By the end, you still do -- but Facebook not longer satisfies.

The 500 million-user question is: Who will create this social network? Will it be Google with its rumored "Google Me" service? Will it be -- gasp! -- Microsoft? Or will it be Facebook itself?

Nobody knows the answer to that question. But what we do know is that Facebook's current structure is unsustainable. Eventually social groups collide. And when they do, it's lights out for Facebook.

New virus targets industrial secrets

2010-07-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

DG News Service - Siemens is warning customers of a new and highly sophisticated virus that targets the computers used to manage large-scale industrial control systems used by manufacturing and utility companies.

Siemens learned about the issue on July 14, Siemens Industry spokesman Michael Krampe said in an e-mail message Friday. "The company immediately assembled a team of experts to evaluate the situation. Siemens is taking all precautions to alert its customers to the potential risks of this virus," he said.

Security experts believe the virus appears to be the kind of threat they have worried about for years -- malicious software designed to infiltrate the systems used to run factories and parts of the critical infrastructure.

Some have worried that this type of virus could be used to take control of those systems, to disrupt operations or trigger a major accident, but experts say an early analysis of the code suggests it was probably designed to steal secrets from manufacturing plants and other industrial facilities.

"This has all the hallmarks of weaponized software, probably for espionage," said Jake Brodsky, an IT worker with a large utility, who asked that his company not be identified because he was not authorized to speak on its behalf.

Other industrial systems security experts agreed, saying the malicious software was written by a sophisticated and determined attacker. The software does not exploit a bug in the Siemens system to get onto a PC, but instead uses a previously undisclosed Windows bug to break into the system.

The virus targets Siemens management software called Simatic WinCC, which runs on the Windows operating system.

"Siemens is reaching out to its sales team and will also speak directly to its customers to explain the circumstances," Krampe said. "We are urging customers to carry out an active check of their computer systems with WinCC installations and use updated versions of antivirus software in addition to remaining vigilant about IT security in their production environments."

Late Friday, Microsoft issued a security advisory warning of the issue, saying it affects all versions of Windows, including its latest Windows 7 operating system. The company has seen the bug exploited only in limited, targeted attacks, Microsoft said.

The systems that run the Siemens software, called SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems, are typically not connected to the Internet for security reasons, but this virus spreads when an infected USB stick is inserted into a computer.

Once the USB device is plugged into the PC, the virus scans for a Siemens WinCC system or another USB device, according to Frank Boldewin, a security analyst with German IT service provider GAD, who has studied the code. It copies itself to any USB device it finds, but if it detects the Siemens software, it immediately tries to log in using a default password. Otherwise it does nothing, he said in an e-mail interview.

That technique may work, because SCADA systems are often badly configured, with default passwords unchanged, Boldewin said.

The virus was discovered last month by researchers with VirusBlokAda, a little-known antivirus firm based in Belarus, and reported Thursday by security blogger Brian Krebs.

To get around Windows systems that require digital signatures -- a common practice in SCADA environments -- the virus uses a digital signature assigned to semiconductor maker Realtek. The virus is triggered anytime a victim tries to view the contents of the USB stick. A technical description of the virus can be found here (pdf).

It's unclear how the authors of the virus were able to sign their code with Realtek's digital signature, but it may indicate that Realtek's encryption key has been compromised. The Taiwanese semiconductor maker could not be reached for comment Friday.

In many ways, the virus mimics proof-of-concept attacks that security researchers like Wesley McGrew have been developing in laboratories for years. The systems it targets are attractive to attackers because they can provide a treasure-trove of information about the factory or utility where they're used.

Whoever wrote the virus software may have been targeting a specific installation, said McGrew, founder of McGrew Security and a researcher at Mississippi State University. If the authors had wanted to break into as many computers as possible, rather than a specific target, they would have tried to exploit more popular SCADA management systems such as Wonderware or RSLogix, he said.

According to experts there are several reasons why someone might want to break a SCADA system "There may be money in it," McGrew said. "Maybe you take over a SCADA system and you hold it hostage for money."

Criminals could use the information from a manufacturer's WinCC system to learn how to counterfeit products, said Eric Byres, chief technology officer with security consultancy Byres Security. "This looks like a grade A case of focused IP-harvesting," he said. "This looks focused and real."

Microsoft confirms 'nasty' Windows zero-day bug

2010-07-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

Computerworld - Microsoft on Friday warned that attackers are exploiting a critical unpatched Windows vulnerability using infected USB flash drives.

The bug admission is the first that affects Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) since Microsoft retired the edition from support, researchers said. When Microsoft does fix the flaw, it will not be providing a patch for machines still running XP SP2.

In a security advisory, Microsoft confirmed what other researchers had been saying for almost a month: Hackers have been exploiting a bug in Windows "shortcut" files, the placeholders typically dropped on the desktop or into the Start menu to represent links to actual files or programs.

"In the wild, this vulnerability has been found operating in conjunction with the Stuxnet malware," Dave Forstrom, a director in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, said in a post Friday to a company blog. Stuxnet is a clan of malware that includes a Trojan horse that downloads further attack code, including a rootkit that hides evidence of the attack.

Forstrom characterized the threat as "limited, targeted attacks," but the Microsoft group responsible for crafting antivirus signatures said it had tracked 6,000 attempts to infect Windows PCs as of July 15.

On Friday, Siemens alerted customers of its Simatic WinCC management software that attacks using the Windows vulnerability were targeting computers used to manage large-scale industrial control systems used by major manufacturing and utility companies.

The vulnerability was first mentioned on June 17 in an alert issued by VirusBlokAda, a little-known security firm based in Belarus. Other security organizations, including U.K.-based Sophos and SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center, picked up on the threat Friday. Security blogger Brian Krebs, formerly with the Washington Post, reported on it Thursday.

According to Microsoft, Windows fails to correctly parse shortcut files, identified by the ".lnk" extension. The flaw has been exploited most frequently using USB flash drives. By crafting a malicious .lnk file, hackers can hijack a Windows PC with little user interaction: All that's necessary is that the user views the contents of the USB drive with a file manager like Windows Explorer.

Chester Wisniewski, a senior security advisory with Sophos, called the threat "nasty," and said his tests showed that the exploit works even when AutoRun and AutoPlay -- two functions that have previously been used by attackers to commandeer PCs using infected flash drives -- are disabled. The rootkit also bypasses all security mechanisms in Windows, including the User Account Control (UAC) prompts in Vista and Windows 7, said Wisniewski in a blog entry Friday.

Attacks can also be launched without using USB drives, Microsoft and Wisniewski both noted. "Affected shortcuts can also be distributed over network shares or remote WebDAV shares," said Microsoft's advisory.

"[That makes] a very bad situation worse," said Wisniewski.

Microsoft did not set a timeline for patching the zero-day vulnerability; its next Patch Tuesday is not until Aug. 10.

For now, Microsoft said users could block attacks by disabling the displaying of shortcuts, and turning off the WebClient service. Both moves require editing the Windows registry, a chore most people avoid for fear of crippling their computers. Disabling shortcut files also will make it more difficult for users to launch programs or open documents.

That advice is all the help that those still running Windows XP SP2, the service pack that was retired from all support last Tuesday, will get from Microsoft.

"Noticeably absent from [Microsoft's list of affected software] are Windows 2000 and Windows XP SP2 as they are no longer supported," said Wisniewski. "They are, however, definitely still vulnerable." Microsoft also retired all editions of Windows 2000 from support last week.

Wolfgang Kandek, the chief technology officer of Qualys, echoed Wisniewski's concerns about XP SP2 and Windows 2000 going patchless. "We assume the attack works against both of them and attackers will surely take advantage of this security hole," Kandek said Saturday.

Microsoft said that all still-supported versions of Windows, including Windows XP SP3, Vista, Server 2003, Windows 7, Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2, contain the bug. The betas of Windows 7 SP1 and Server 2008 R2 SP1, which the company released last week, are also at risk.

Windows XP SP2 users must upgrade to XP SP3 to receive a patch for the shortcut flaw when it eventually ships.

YouTube Premium: is it time to charge for videos?

2010-07-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

YouTube's popularity continues to make for impressive statistics, but it also serves as a reminder of how little the site has changed through the years.

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A new report from ComScore details just how far YouTube has come. For the first time, the average visitor to Google video sites - mainly YouTube - watched more than 100 clips per month. More importantly, almost 145 million people visited Google's video sites per month, accounting for 43.1 percent of all online video served.

And yet, YouTube has made few drastic changes. Take a look at the home page - I imagine most of you rarely see it, instead landing on the site through links or embedded videos. Note how it's populated almost entirely by user-generated content. The site very much adheres to its original mantra, 'Broadcast Yourself', while premium content, which is generally more lucrative for advertising and could potentially be sold directly to YouTube's vast audience, takes a back seat.

Meanwhile, Hulu, whose 3.5 percent of online video served is in a distant second, is rumoured to be building a subscription service in the US called Hulu Plus. For $10 per month, Hulu Plus would provide access to the entire archive of Hulu shows, while the free service would only include the most recent five episodes of any show.

There were murmurs late last year of a subscription service for YouTube, but the site has also made other attempts to transcend its homegrown vibe. First came the full-length movies and TV shows - mostly outdated classics such as Star Trek - followed by a couple of modest attempts to sell video rentals.

Still, it now seems that YouTube is backing away from an emphasis on premium. When YouTube introduced its first movies and shows, a redesign of the site subtly promoted the premium content with a 'Shows' tab, but even that's gone from the home page now. Today, the site is all about what's popular and what's recommended based on your previous viewing habits.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Hulu, by offering a subscription package, is headed into uncharted waters, mostly due to pressure from content owners who want the site to start making more money, pronto. Buoyed by hundreds of millions of eyeballs, maybe YouTube doesn't need that stress.

Royalty group says ISPs should pay for pirated music

2010-07-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

Music royalty collection society, PRS for Music, has suggested charging ISPs for pirated content traded on their networks, as the organisation claims piracy will worsen with faster broadband speeds.

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With the introduction of a fee, ISPs may be spurred into either "cleaning out the unlicensed media files" or accept the fee as the cost of doing business and find "new ways to source the value of these creative works", according to the paper from PRS for Music.

PRS for Music is also comprised of the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society. Both organisations, which have about 65,000 songwriters and publisher members, collect and pay royalties based on music that is performed or distributed.

"Operators would face a fee for the transmission of unlicenced media on their networks though that fee would be reduced in line with reductions in the volume of unlicenced media transmitted," according to the paper.

The Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA), a trade group that represents about 200 companies, said it opposes the idea and instead favours a market-based approach, reforming "the licencing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are demanding."

"We reject the idea that ISPs should have to pay a fee for levels of copyright infringement that may occur on their networks," they said.

Copyright infringement is a hotly debated issue at themoment The Digital Economy Act, which was made law in May, features measures designed to tackle net piracy, makes communications regulator Ofcom responsible for creating a code of practice for ISPs aimed at reducing online copyright infringement.

Ofcom has published a draft code of how it proposes to regulate ISPs. The draft code is open to comments through July 30, which includes provisions for how ISPs should limit or cut off internet access for those accused of illegally sharing files without permission from the copyright holder.

In its position pager, PRS for Music writes that a company called Detica has developed a system that provides an index of copyright infringement and "tracks over time the nature of plausibly illicit file sharing across a network".

The organisation also suggests that an alternative would be to charge ISPs for blanket licences and then let them "determine for themselves how best to capture the raw value of media on networks".

Aside from the opposition from ISPs, the plan would appear to have another stumbling block, which was noted in the paper.

"In the US and Europe, the ISP is not necessarily liable for the infringement of rights by their customers because of the safe harbors granted through e-commerce legislation," it said.

PRS for Music said that it would be necessary to revisit the "safe harbours" in order for rights holders to licence the ISPs for file sharing on their networks.

PRS for Music argues that unlicenced exploitation of copyright provides no direct compensation to the creators of the works, but do provide value to those which transmit these content to the public.

The organisation also contends there is "serious doubt" among stakeholders regarding net neutrality.

"By enforcing neutrality in principle without respecting both the costs and the benefits of neutrality in practice, Britain's markets for both creative content and network connectivity find the common carrier spirit unsustainable."

How-to upgrade your motherboard the easy way

2010-07-17T17:22:00.000-07:00

You've taken the plunge and bought a hot new motherboard. Here's how to upgrade your motherboard, swap your hardware, and prep your system so that you won't have to reinstall your apps.

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Upgrading your PC's motherboard is a pretty scary task. Even accomplished geeks will shy away from it.

Years ago, I would often upgrade gaming and test systems in my own basement lab, but keep chugging along with a production machine using a two-year-old motherboard and CPU.

Then I learned how to swap in a new motherboard without having to deal with a clean install. It isn't that difficult, provided you do a little up-front prep. The hard part is not the hardware installation - modern motherboards are easier to set up and install than in years past - it's bringing up an existing Windows installation and all your applications.

In this article I'm going to focus on a single-generation upgrade. Examples might include moving from an Intel Core 2-generation board to a Core i5/i7 board, or from an AMD Athlon 64 X2 AM2 board to a Phenom X4-capable board. Even in this case, you may be looking at additional hardware - particularly memory, if you're moving from DDR2 RAM to DDR3.

Specifically, I won't look at trying to move from very old hardware (say, a motherboard with AGP) to brand-new hardware. If you're planning on moving from ancient gear to current gear, a clean install really is the best way to go.

Here I'll walk you through the process of upgrading the motherboard in an existing PC, including taking care of all the software issues. The goal is to keep and maintain your existing Windows installation even after a motherboard upgrade. I'll focus on the process with Windows 7, but I'll also offer tips and tricks for Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Performing a motherboard upgrade is fairly simple, and consists of three parts: pre-upgrade preparation, the physical swap, and post-upgrade polishing.

Preparing for the swap

Step 1: Back up
One key point to remember: You are putting your data at risk. Even if you're not into regular backups, now is the time to back up your system. I suggest backing up your valuable data onto an external drive first. Then, if possible, make an image backup of your entire hard drive, using a tool such as Acronis True Image (£39) or DriveImage XML (free). You don't have to clone to another hard drive; just put an image file on another drive, even on the external drive that contains the data backup.

Step 2: Collect software registration keys
Take a close look at all the software you're running. Most modern applications require entering a registration key. You may have to re-enter those keys, so make sure that you have them on hand, preferably on hard copy. If you have a lot of programs, grab Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder it will pull all of your registration keys so that you can easily record them.

Step 3: Deactivate or uninstall activated applications
If an application requires activation, it may see a new motherboard as an attempt to copy the software illegally, and it may refuse to run as a result. For example, most Adobe professional apps (Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and the suites, CS3 or later) require activation. However, they also have a handy 'Deactivate' button in the help menu. If you're running an Adobe suite, you need to deactivate only one app to take care of the whole affair; but if you've installed individual programs, you'll have to deactivate those as well.

Similarly, some games will require deactivation or uninstallation if they've been activated. Whatever the application, if it has gone through an activation process, you need to be prepared to reactivate it when you're installing a new motherboard. This rule of thumb may include Windows itself - I'll talk about how to take care of that in the post-upgrade section.

It's possible to skip the uninstall step for some apps, but doing so may mean that you'll find yourself calling the company for a new activation. I've done this for both Adobe and Microsoft apps without any issues, but it can be time consuming.

Step 4: Update your drivers
This step is particularly useful if you're moving from an older Intel chipset to a newer one (or from an older AMD chipset to a more recent generation). The latest Intel chipset drivers, which you can download from Intel's website, are generally supersets, so the driver for your motherboard will also install drivers and .INF files for newer chipsets. Note that these files aren't actually active in your system, but are enumerated and installed when you bring up Windows for the first time on the new board.

It's also a good time to update your graphics board's drivers and, if you have a discrete sound card, your audio drivers. If you're using the motherboard's integrated audio, you'll obviously be installing those drivers after the upgrade.

Step 5: Check your storage settings
First, check your disk-interface settings. Migrating between chipsets from different companies can be problematic. For example, if you're moving from an nVidia chipset to an Intel one, you'll want to make sure that your PC isn't running proprietary nVidia drivers for IDE. Otherwise, you might experience a blue-screen error on first boot -namely, the dreaded 'STOP 0x0000007' error, indicating that the disk interface is unrecognized.

For this article, I'll be upgrading a relatively standard desktop system with a single boot drive. Similar considerations hold true for RAID setups, however. If you're running RAID 1, you might want to revert to a single-volume setup until you get the system up and running. If you're running RAID 0, it's more complicated if the chipset manufacturers differ; you may have to reimage the volume to a single drive until after the installation. Note that moving from one Intel RAID generation to the next usually works without a hitch.

This is one reason backups are critical: You are changing your primary storage driver.

Note that I'm talking about boot drives here. If you have a RAID 1 or RAID 0 secondary drive, you'll probably be okay - but back up before upgrading anyway. There's always the chance that the new system won't recognise your old RAID volume if you're using the motherboard chipset to handle RAID.

If your machine is booting off an add-in disk-controller board (for instance, a PCI Express SAS or SCSI controller), you might not have a problem with the first boot, but there's no guarantee. You may have to perform a Windows repair (possible with Windows XP or Windows 7, but something you can't really do with Vista).

If you are migrating between similar chipsets (old Intel to new Intel, for example) and are running Intel RAID or AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) mode, update the Intel RAID drivers to the latest version.

Check your BIOS setting to be certain, and make sure your new motherboard's settings are the same before fully booting for the first time. For example, if you're running AHCI in the current arrangement, set your new motherboard to AHCI in the BIOS prior to your first system start.

There are other possibilities as well - and if you have an unusually complex setup, a clean install may be the only way to go.

The upgrade

For this article, I picked a pretty straightforward project. The system to be upgraded had an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU running on an Intel DX48BT2 motherboard, which uses an Intel X48 chipset. Though it was already a fairly fast system, it served my purposes, as it consisted of a last-generation CPU running on top of an older chipset.

I replaced the DX48BT2 with an Intel DX58SO motherboard, plus a Core i7 930 processor (2.8GHz) and 6GB of DDR3 memory from OCZ.

The original system had a few games, Microsoft Office, and Windows 7 Professional 64bit edition. Office, of course, required activation, as did Windows itself.

To swap in the new gear, find a good work space that's flat, dry, and free of static electricity. If you live in a cold, dry area, running a humidifier in the background may be worthwhile. If possible, ground yourself with an antistatic strap; if you don't have one, be sure to touch bare metal to ensure that you've discharged static electricity before proceeding.

First, remove the old motherboard. You need to be careful when removing the CPU cooler and, in particular, the tiny connectors that run to the status LEDs, as well as the power and reset buttons. In fact, make sure to disconnect all wiring and cables before you start pulling out mounting screws. You'll probably want to remove the old memory and CPU, as well, storing them in appropriate, static-free containers. (Note: Tupperware and similar containers are not a good idea.)

You'll need a number 2 Phillips screwdriver, and possibly some fine needlenose pliers. Once you've disconnected all the wiring, take out the mounting screws and set them aside, and then wiggle the motherboard out carefully. Store the board in an antistatic envelope. Be sure to remove the ATX I/O plate, too.

Motherboard installation

Before you drop in the new motherboard, check the standoffs that accept the mounting screws. Make sure they're installed - some may have come out when you removed the original board. Also confirm that they're properly aligned vertically.

Unpack the new motherboard, making sure to remove the CPU socket protector before proceeding with CPU installation.

Don't forget to install the ATX I/O back plate, or you'll find yourself removing the motherboard to install it.

Now it's time to prep the new motherboard. Just to make life interesting, on my system I decided to use a high-end CPU cooler, the Thermalright Ultra120. That requires the installation of a mounting plate on the backside of the motherboard.

If you're using a stock Intel cooler, you can skip this step; the Intel cooler uses expansion pushpins to lock down the cooler, so no mounting plate is necessary. Just be certain that the pushpins line up properly before you press down.

The Thermalright mounting plate fits snugly; but don't push too hard, as the motherboard itself has a mounting plate for the LGA1366 socket.

Flip the board over, making sure the cooler mounting plate doesn't fall off. Now gently insert the CPU into the socket, confirming that the notches on the side of the CPU circuit board align with the tabs on the socket.

Attach the heat-sink mounting brackets, screwing down gently - don't screw the brackets too tightly. Then spread a thin layer of thermal paste on the surface of the CPU heat spreader to ensure robust thermal contact with the heat sink.

Prior to installing the cooler, install the DDR3 memory modules into the appropriate sockets. I chose my specific set of DDR3 modules partly because they're relatively low profile, and don't have extra-tall heat sinks of their own; otherwise, the Thermalright heat sink wouldn't have fit.

The Ultra120 heat sink attaches with two spring-loaded screws. Make sure the center pin on the screw mound nests into the dimple on the upper side of the heat sink.

The image above doesn't show the 120mm cooling fan that attaches to the heat sink; that part just slides on with a simple plastic clip.

Making the connections

After you've installed the motherboard, CPU, memory, and cooler, it's time to attach all of the connectors. Your motherboard documentation will show you the layout for these, so consult that before proceeding. Here are the basics you'll need to connect.

Primary power
ATX12V secondary CPU power connector (four-pin or eight-pin; if you have a choice, go with eight-pin)
Power and reset switches, plus hard-drive and power-activity LEDs
Fan connectors, including the CPU cooling fan
USB and front-panel audio (your system may also have a front-panel FireWire connector; my Coolermaster Sileo 500 case lacked that amenity)
SATA connectors on the motherboard (make sure to do this before you install the graphics board)
Storage connectors to the hard drives and optical drives

Finally, install the PCI Express graphics card and make sure to attach the PCIe power connectors to the card.

Okay, now it's time to boot the system, right? Well, not quite.

Review: things to check

Always go back and review what you've done before booting up the PC--I always forget something.

Is the memory seated properly?
Is the CPU cooling fan connected to power?
Are the mounting screws screwed in properly?
Is the ATX I/O back plate installed?
Are the power and reset switch connectors attached?
Are the IDE and power LED connectors attached?
Is the case-fan power connected?
Are the storage data and power cables connected?
Are both the main and ATX12V power cables connected?
Is the PCI Express power connected to the graphics board?

Now that you've double-checked all the connections, you need to attach the external cabling, namely the power, keyboard, mouse, network, and video cables. Next, you'll power up the system.

Post-upgrade follow-up

Before you attempt to boot into Windows, get into the BIOS setup program by pressing F2 (Intel motherboards) or Del (most other motherboards). You want to check the boot order, particularly if you have more than one hard drive - you need to make sure that the Windows boot drive is the first drive the system sees. Most modern motherboards allow you to specify which SATA drive is the boot drive.

Also check that you have the right storage type specified for your configuration: IDE, AHCI, or RAID. (Note: If you're using a solid-state drive, don't enable AHCI.)

Once you're confident that the correct boot drive is specified, boot up the system.

Assuming you've connected everything properly, you should see the Windows 7 boot screen. You'll then need to wait as Windows enumerates all the new hardware. Since I installed the latest Intel motherboard drivers prior to taking out the old motherboard, this process went smoothly for me.

After all the devices have been enumerated and the drivers updated, you'll need to reboot the PC.

Once you've rebooted a second time, check to see if Windows thinks it needs to be activated. You may get a warning to this effect. You can just bring up the system property sheet (in the System control panel) and look at the bottom. There you'll see an 'activate windows now' query, along with an expiration period. I've encountered grace periods as short as three days in a motherboard upgrade; in other instances, Windows doesn't need reactivation. It seems to be something of a crap shoot, but the majority of the time, you'll need to reactivate the OS.

In my particular case, activating over the internet worked fine. Bear in mind, however, that you may have to resort to contacting the Microsoft activation hotline via telephone if activation over the internet is denied. The process takes only a few minutes, and requires entering codes into fields. If the automated system asks you how many computers this copy of Windows is running on, make sure you answer '1'.

Cross-chipset and cross-CPU upgrades

If you're moving from AMD to Intel or vice versa, or if the new motherboard uses a chipset from a different manufacturer than the old one, you need to do a little more work.

First, grab your Windows setup disc and your Windows CD key. If you're upgrading a Windows XP installation, boot from the Windows XP CD. Follow the normal instructions for installing Windows XP, but do not reformat or perform a clean install. Instead, follow the prompts for a repair install. What that will do is update the storage driver to one that Windows will recognise when it boots.

This also works with Windows 7, using the 'Repair My System' option. In both cases you'll need to re-enter the Windows key.

Windows Vista makes the process more painful: Vista has no repair option, a serious oversight on Microsoft's part. What has sometimes worked is to boot into safe mode, install the new storage drivers (from the motherboard maker's CD or floppy disk), and then proceed with the boot. But if that doesn't work, you may find yourself performing a clean install after all--which is why backing up your system prior to an upgrade is critical.

Final thoughts

The upgrade path I present in this article is simple and straightforward, but lays down the groundwork you'll need if you have a more-complex setup. I've performed this type of upgrade several times now with Windows 7, and the machines all continue to run trouble-free.

Even if you think you might need to perform a reformat and a clean install, try running your existing Windows installation first. You might be pleasantly surprised at the result.

The 11 best Windows 7 downloads

2010-07-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

Customise and tweak Windows 7 to suit your PC

Preston Gralla, PC World

Not quite happy with the way Windows 7 works, or looking to get more out of the operating system? You've come to the right place. We're big fans of Microsoft's latest OS, but we're also big fans of making Windows better.

http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/jump/pcadvisor.co.uk/news1;kw=software;tile=2;sz=250x250,300x250,336x280;ord=1279412383986?"> http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/ad/pcadvisor.co.uk/news1;kw=software;tile=2;sz=250x250,300x250,336x280;ord=1279412383986?" border="0" alt="" />

In this article, we've rounded up the best Windows 7 downloads. They'll let you customise it in any way possible, give it features that Microsoft removed or neglected to include, and more. So get ready to download - you're about to take Windows 7 to a new level.

Network Activity Indicator for Windows 7

When Microsoft released Windows 7, the company inexplicably did away with a small, nifty utility called the Network Activity Indicator. Now you can have it back. The Network Activity Indicator for Windows 7 does what the Vista utility does, and then some. Like the Vista version, this tool puts a small icon (depicting two monitors) in the system tray to indicate when you're connected to a network or the internet, and the icon blinks to show you when your machine is sending or receiving data; it also provides useful information, such as the network to which you're connected.

On top of that, however, this utility offers a lot more detail. For example, if you hover your mouse over its icon, you'll see transmission data about the number of packets you've sent and received. Right-click the icon, and you'll find yourself in network techie heaven, with gobs of statistics such as your active open connections, the number of errors you've received, your minimum timeout settings, and the like.

Even if you don't need all of that information, though, this is a very practical addition to your Windows 7 PC. It's a convenient tool for seeing your network status at a glance.

7Smoker Pro

Want more customisation power than you can get from free Windows 7 utilities? Try the pay-for 7Smoker Pro. It gives you enormous control over countless aspects of Windows 7's appearance and functionality in four categories: Tweaks, Maintenance, Security, and Passwords. Each of those categories has subcategories, and each subcategory offers multiple tweaks - which means that you can customise hundreds of individual Windows 7 settings.

If you don't have the patience to make that many tweaks, the $30 (£19.70) program also has a one-click automatic tuner that peers into your system and adjusts it to make it run more effectively. You'll also find other nice tools, such as one that looks for the folders consuming the most space on your hard disk so that you can trim them down.

Although some of the tweaks are straightforward and easy to understand, many others are more technical in nature. Do you know what it means to 'Disable paging of kernel' or to 'Disable TIF Settings', for example? This application lets you do such things, but it doesn't tell you what they mean, or what effect the settings have on your PC. As a result, 7Smoker Pro is best suited for more-experienced Windows fans - but they'll find it very useful.

We're big fans of Microsoft's latest OS, but we're also big fans of making Windows better. So we've rounded up the 11 best Windows 7 downloads.

Windows 7 Manager

A great way to bend Windows 7 to your will is to use Windows 7 Manager. With this utility, you have the power to customise and improve just about every aspect of Windows 7. Want to optimise and clean your system? Need to control what programs run on Windows startup, or to adjust the Task Scheduler to turn off unnecessary system tasks? No problem.

This application also does far more, including improving security and cleaning your hard disk. The amount of control that Windows 7 Manager gives you is extraordinary. For example, you can change the mouse hover time before a pop-up displays, repair hardware and software problems, or optimise your broadband connection.

The neatly laid-out interface puts everything within reach. Click what you want to improve, and you'll see a screen full of options, often accompanied by simple-to-follow wizards. In other instances, you'll need to have a bit of technical background. But no matter what, in this program you'll find easy ways to make Windows 7 work just as you want it to.

Windows 7 Taskbar Thumbnail Customizer

One of Windows 7's nicest improvements is the addition to the taskbar of multiple thumbnail previews, which appear whenever you hover your mouse over a taskbar icon. What makes them superior to the Vista version of the feature is that you can see all currently running windows as thumbnails, not just a single window.

But the revamped thumbnails still have one problem: They're typically too small to give you much of a preview, especially if you use a large monitor. Windows 7 Taskbar Thumbnail Customizer, which costs $16 (£10.50), offers a good fix allowing you to change their size in any way you desire.

The program is exceptionally easy to use. Just install it, and then move the sliders to determine the size of the thumbnails themselves, as well as the spacing between them, their margins, and the time they take to display.

What if you wish to go back to the way the thumbnails were before you started changing them? Simply click Restore Defaults.

Win7Zilla

Here's another excellent Windows 7 tweaker - and it may well be the best of the bunch. Not only does it let you change just about any part of the operating system, but in many instances it also shows you exactly what each adjustment will do, which is rare in a system tweaker.

Win7Zilla puts you in charge of almost every part of the operating system, with an incredible amount of fine-grained control. On the Start menu alone, for instance, you can perform more than two dozen tweaks. Now imagine having that level of control over virtually every aspect of Windows 7, from the desktop to the Control Panel to security settings, as well as to Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and beyond. You also get other practical tools, such as a file cleaner and a Registry cleaner.

What really sets Win7Zilla apart is how clearly it explains the effects of your changes. It provides succinct descriptions in plain English - but better yet, it also shows you screenshots, so you can see what will happen. No other tweak utility does this.

If you're willing to pay for a Windows 7 tweaker, you won't do better than this one.

5 essential Windows 7 downloads

If you use Windows 7 regularly, you've probably heard about these standbys - and maybe you've already grabbed one or more. Here are five must-haves that can help any Windows 7 user make the most of the OS.

Wondering whether your older PC has the hardware power to run Windows 7? Don't gamble on upgrading--before making your decision, run the free Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. After you download the tool, make sure that you've connected all of your peripherals to your PC and turned them all on so that the app can give you an accurate report. It checks your processor, graphics subsystem, hard disk, and peripherals. It also examines the software you're running; if you have older programs, it tells you if upgrades are available to make those apps compatible with Windows 7.

Windows 7 has one big, fat hole: It ships without an email program. But Microsoft's Windows Live Mail , which is part of the Windows Live Essentials 4 download - a free, downloadable email client optimised for Windows 7 - is surprisingly powerful. It can access multiple email accounts, and it works with Hotmail, too. Additional features include a photo email capability, which lets you embed pictures inside a message and then add borders and captions - it's almost like sending a photo album. The program handles RSS feeds as well, and it offers spam filtering, the ability to create rules, and solid ways to organise your mail.

In the move to Windows 7, Microsoft also pulled the Windows Photo Gallery. To replace it, however, also included in Windows Live Essentials 4 is the free Windows Live Photo Gallery, which is even better than the version built into Windows Vista. The program makes it easy to browse through and view all your photos, as well as to share them online and via email. It sports a nice set of photo-editing tools for handling tasks such as eliminating red-eye, cropping, and correcting colours; or, if you prefer, you can use the Auto Adjust feature to make photo fixes with a single click. Also nifty is the app's ability to stitch together multiple photos to make a single panoramic view. Among other extras are functions that burn a CD full of photos or help you post a photo to your blog.

For a no-cost utility, EnhanceMySe7en Free is quite substantial. This combination system customiser, diagnostics tool, and maintenance utility gathers an enormous amount of detail about your PC, including data about your processor, RAM, display adapter, and hard disk. It also allows you to customise your Start menu, as well as to tweak the desktop, taskbar, Windows Media Player, and Windows Explorer. These aren't superficial tweaks, either - the program digs down into the guts of your system, permitting you to remove all toolbars from the taskbar, for instance, or to hide the Log Off button on the Start menu. Additionally, you'll find a good Registry cleaner, a disk cleaner, and a way to stop certain programs from running on startup.

Long ago and far away, Microsoft released Tweak UI, a free tool that customised Windows XP in countless ways. It quickly gained a large and loyal following. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't follow suit with a version for Windows 7. TweakUI lovers can instead use the free Ultimate Windows Tweaker , which is actually far more powerful than Tweak UI was.

Here you'll discover well over 100 settings for Windows 7, covering Windows Explorer, the Start menu, the taskbar, User Account Control, system performance, security settings, and more. Want to hide your entire network from Network Neighbourhood? How about disabling Aero Shake, using small icons on the Start menu, or disabling the Control Panel? You can do all that. Note, too, that Ultimate Windows Tweaker runs on Vista as well as on Windows 7; it detects the operating system on which you've installed it, and shows you only the relevant tweaks.

File-Sharing Suits About Fear, Not Cash

2010-07-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) claims it's the trade organization that supports and promotes the creative and financial vitality of the major music companies. No, it's not. It's designed to support a broken, old business model of selling CDs to frightened music lovers. No where do you see that more than the RIAA spending $17.6 million in 2007 to recover a mere $391,000.

It's actually worse than that. According to the DailyTech's numbers, the RIAA spent about $64 million to make $1.4 million between 2006 and 2008. So why are they doing this? Because the RIAA's membership actually want to make money from these lawsuits? No, they just want to scare you back into record shops to buy CDs again.

If the RIAA had its way they'd set the wayback machine to 1992 before the Internet really took off and it became child's play for people to trade files back and forth between each other. Now, I happen to believe that artists should be paid for their work. A lot of people seem to agree with me since, even though CDs still are the most popular way to distribute music, more than 35% of all music in 2009 was sold over the Internet.

Still, the RIAA continues its flood of lawsuits. Indeed, it welcomes such cases as Joel Tenenbaum's where the court first ruled that he should pay $675,000 for sharing music files. While the Tenenbaum judgment has since been reduced to $67,500, the sheer size of that initial fine is the kind of thing that the RIAA hopes will frighten your file-sharing socks off.

It would be so, so much better for music lovers if the RIAA would just get over this, and focus on embracing new online business models. Instead, they're still fixated on the idea that people want to buy albums rather than tracks, and that people actually don't buy music so much as they do rent the use of music for use on one device.

They'd be better off in the long run if they just embraced the EFF's (Electronic Freedom Foundation) Voluntary Collective Licensing approach. Unfortunately, I can't see that happening.

The RIAA is a lot like a buggy-whip manufacturer determined to make sure that no one can travel unless they also pay for a whip. Eventually, as CD sales continue their slow, but sure, collapse, the RIAA will have to change its tune.

While the RIAA has sworn off individual RIAA lawsuits for the moment, I still expect to see more lawsuits from them in the future.

In the meantime, though, it's now the movie industry's turn to start suing people. Voltage Pictures, producers of the Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker," has started suing 50,000 people for allegedly illegally sharing movie files. The 'deal' Voltage's lawyers are offering is to settle for $1,500 or face them in court where they'll be asking for up to $150,000. Ow!

I happen to really like that movie a lot, but this kind of broad-brush lawsuit attack really annoys me. It would be nice to see some proof, for example, that any of the 50,000 'John Does' have actually illegally downloaded the files. Or that in so doing they actually did $150,000 worth of damage per incident to the movie's revenue.

If you're ever stuck on the wrong end of an RIAA or a movie sharing lawsuit, I strongly suggest you check out the EFF's RIAA v. The People page. It's not easy to beat the industry at this game, but it can be done. Unfortunately, we're still stuck with this lawsuit happy media world for now.

Add RAM to a Laptop

2010-07-17T17:16:00.002-07:00

So my dad was griping that his Acer Aspire 9300 laptop takes forever to boot. I inspected it for spyware, excessive startup programs, and the other usual suspects, but everything checked out.

Then I remembered that the machine is about three years old and wasn't a powerhouse to begin with. So I checked the RAM. Bingo: it has only 1GB. Windows Vista needs at least 2GB to run smoothly. (So does Windows 7, but I've seen it run reasonably well on less.)

Upgrading a laptop's RAM may sound like a big deal, but it's actually the single easiest upgrade there is. The only challenge lies in determining how many RAM modules your system currently has and what kind they are.

To find out, turn off your system, unplug it, remove the battery, and flip it over. You should see at least one panel that can be removed with a small screwdriver. Consult your manual if you can't find the one covering the RAM sockets--or just open them all. Here's what you're looking for:

Most laptops have two sockets. If only one is occupied, just buy a module that exactly matches the existing one and drop it in. That'll effectively double your RAM.

If both sockets are filled, you'll have to replace both modules. In the case of Dad's Aspire, for example, it had a pair of 512MB modules for a total of 1GB of RAM. We elected to replace them with a pair of 1GB modules for 2GB total. (What to do with the displaced RAM? Ebay, of course!)

Not sure what kind of memory your laptop takes? Head to a site like Crucial, which can identify nearly every make and model. (Of course, once you know what you need, you can shop around to find the best price.)

There are countless how-to guides online that can help you further. I just wanted to let you know that if your laptop seems sluggish, it may be because it needs more RAM. Thankfully, it's a cheap and easy upgrade.

PalTalkScene Adds Video to Its Chat

2010-07-17T17:16:00.001-07:00

PaltalkScene is a full-featured messaging/chat program that includes video, audio, and a host of other bells and whistles, as well as the ability to send and receive messages from several other chat programs or protocols, including Facebook and Yahoo IM. It is fairly easy to install and use, though the free version has ongoing banner ads which make the interface seem cluttered and busy, distracting your eye from the ongoing stream of text or the video of your friends trying to shoo their cat away from their Webcam.

PalTalkScene has video, sound, fonts, and graphics...but basic chatting hasn't changed much since Compuserve CB Simulator in 1988.

The Paltalk service has a tiered pricing plan. Paltalk Free is the level reviewed here. Paltalk Plus costs 40.00/year and includes unlimited, but low framerate, video (6 video windows at a time), and Paltalk Extreme increases the framerate and removes the window limit, for 60.00/year. All paid programs remove the banner ads..

PaltalkScene combines a person-to-person (or small group of up to 10 in Paltalk Free) messenger with a community site featuring literally thousands of rooms... most of which are empty. As is typical of any site where you can trivially create a room, club, or other such organization, thousands of people log on once, make a room, then never return, and rooms which have not seen a person log in for two years continue to clutter up search results. Also, as a side note, apparently there are apparently an awful lot of people for whom "roleplaying" does not involve Monster Manuals and twenty-sided dice. At least, I sure hope not.

I was able to find some decently populated rooms in only a few minutes of browsing. Fortunately, you can see room population and even sort by it before entering, so you don't waste time entering empty rooms. The text chat in PaltalkScene has all of the expected features--you can change your font, color, add bold or italic, and insert all kinds of graphic emoticons from a wide selection. Audio chat is clear and adds a nice dimension to the experience. Video chat is also enabled; you will see who in the room has a camera and you can see it if you wish, but the free version allows only 10 seconds of video in chat rooms. For private one-on-one chat, video is unlimited.

Other functions of PaltalkScene include the creation of groups for your pals, so you can easily send one message to coworkers ("Learning a lot at this conference, will tell you all when I get back.") and one to friends ("It's a good thing this is all on my expense account"). Just don't mix them up. You can easily create rooms, or store sets of your favorite rooms, and so on.

Bottom line? I liked the overall ease of use and setup of rooms and video. It was a trivial matter to do so simply by following the interface. Finding an existing room to join was somewhat hampered by the many dead rooms that cluttered the search results. The advertising and 10-second limit on video in chat rooms were irksome, but the point of most "Free" or "Lite" versions of software is to annoy you into paying for the full thing. The cross-protocol chat feature was my favorite; I really like having one program to use for multiple groups of friends. The free version is definitely worth trying out; if you find a good community you like, upgrading to a paid version may well be justified.

Firefox Home Syncs Your Faves to Your iPhone

2010-07-17T17:06:00.000-07:00

Mozilla’s new Firefox Home app for Apple mobiles is now available for download. You can get Firefox Home for the iPhone and iPod Touch in iTunes. It’s a free download.

As we mentioned when we first told you about it, the Firefox Home app is not Firefox on your iPhone. It’s a companion to Firefox.

It securely syncs your bookmarks, browsing history, user preferences and open tabs from the last time you used Firefox, and it brings them down to your iPhone or iPod Touch so you can access that stuff on your mobile. It works in tandem with Firefox Sync, Mozilla’s hosted, cloud-based service that keeps all of your installations of Firefox synced up with one another.

It’s especially welcome now, as most of us use multiple screens every day — one or two computers, and at least one smartphone with a web browser. Firefox Sync tied our work machine and our home machine together by syncing all of our browser data in the cloud, and Firefox Home completes the circuit for iOS users, making all the hard-to-remember stuff — your myriad “starred” favorites and bookmarked URLs — available in your pocket.

Needless to say, this app is only going to be useful to you if you’re a Firefox user with an iPhone or iPod Touch. Android users have had Mozilla’s mobile version of Firefox available on their phones since April.

You also need to have Firefox Sync set up to use it. If you don’t have an account, you can sign up when you install the app on your phone. You will also need the Sync add-on for Firefox (newer versions of Firefox will ship with Sync pre-installed). As Charlie Sorrel notes in his Gadget Lab post, this is a bit more work than syncing your desktop Safari data to your iPhone, which just involves checking a box in iTunes (and you can keep Safari and Firefox in sync — and by extension, the iPhone — using Xmarks, but only on the Mac). Opera’s mobile browsers have easy syncing as well. But unlike those choices, this isn’t a new browser or a half-way-there solution, it’s a direct line to the same browser data that’s on your desktops and laptops.

Once the app is set up, you can search your history, access your Firefox bookmarks and see the tabs you most recently had open when you walked away from your computer. All of this info is accessible from within Firefox Home’s search bar, which is sort of a miniature version of the “Awesome Bar” in Firefox. It will search both page titles and URL strings, and it will auto-suggest results as you type.

Just like using the Awesome Bar in Firefox, everything shows up in a single list as you type, and a little icon shows up next to each item to tell you what sort of result it is — a bookmark, a piece of history, an open tab.

Click on an item and the page opens inside an in-app browser. It’s your standard iOS WebKit browser in a pretty blue wrapper, and it performs about the same as the built-in browser inside other popular apps like Twitter.

So Firefox Home is not Firefox on your iPhone, which is something we’re not ever likely to see. Mozilla’s brass has made it clear that Apple’s app policies are too restrictive for Firefox, and the company doesn’t want to dumb the browser down for the iPhone. For people who use Firefox as their primary browser everywhere else, this app is the next best thing.

You can read Mozilla’s announcement for more links, troubleshooting tips, and feedback channels.

Hands on With the Samsung Galaxy S

2010-07-17T09:26:00.001-07:00

Samsung’s making a splash with their new, high-end line of Android ”Galaxy S” handsets. And while they’ve already launched overseas, the US variants with custom enclosures and functionality, started rolling out yesterday:

As part of the launch festivities, I was provided a stock Galaxy S to evaluate. Media outreach and spec sheet highlights have led with Samsung’s 4″ 800 x 480 Super AMOLED screen. And while I initially found it oversaturated, even garish (combined with Samsung’s Touchwiz skinning), I’ve landed somewhere else entirely. In fact, I’ve concluded that the Galaxy S utilizes the most pleasing mobile display I’ve encountered — striking an excellent balance of resolution, size, and vibrancy. The Galaxy S obviously isn’t as high res as Apple’s iPhone 4 pixel-dense “retina display” … but with uncorrected sub-20/20 vision, it’s not like I’ve been bothered by aliasing at 18″. So, ultimately, I find myself in the same camp as Harry:

if all other phone features were equal, I’d take more square inches over more pixels

A common Galaxy S knock has been a plasticy appearance and/or feel. And while the enclosure is indeed plastic, it contributes (positively) to a lightweight feeling device, despite sporting that 4″ display. (And how quickly folks have forgotten iPhone 3GS and 3G’s slippery plastic backside?) There’s no debating that the Samsung’s handset doesn’t pack the same level of materials or symmetry found on the iPhone 4 but, in my week of usage, the Galaxy S has been both comfortable and functional.

Regarding the Galaxy S’s photographic capabilities, I can tell you the handset captures 5 megapixel stills and 720p video. I haven’t shot enough sample content to pass judgement, other than saying quality’s in about the same ballpark as most of the competition. Two other camera notes… The Galaxy S doesn’t incorporate a LED, or other, flash. Which isn’t a problem for me, as a flash-free photographer, but it’s something you may want to consider. Also, my particular unit houses a front-facing camera. But, sadly, I’m unaware of any Market apps which support the feature (yet) and believe only the Sprint model in the US will contain similar.

Like other Android smartphone manufacturers, Samsung aims to enhance the stock ‘droid experience by providing their own skin, other UI customizations, and apps. The latest incarnation of Touchwiz (3.0) is an improvement over its predecessors and it’s definitely grown on me during my period of testing. Yet, there’s still much I prefer from HTC’s SenseUI – specifically in regards to home screen and icon presentation. However, I do quite like Samsung’s dialer and the non-standard (for Android), but more consistant, horizontal app tray cycling.

The Galaxy S also comes preloaded with some Samsung social-esque apps that I’ve mostly ignored, but the wireless hotspot functionality and Swype software certainly got my attention. It’s a safe assumption that the US Galaxy S handsets won’t ship with the infinitely useful wireless access point app (without associated tethering charges), but we know Swype’s being bundled. And it makes for an amazing keyboard replacement app. In addition to tapping out characters, Swype lets you virtually connect the alphabet dots for text entry – and the accuracy is uncanny. Not perfect, but damn good. Check out the demo video at jkOnTheRun to see Swype in action.

Of course, phones are still used for voice communication and I did make a few calls. Audio quality has been fine on both ends and earpiece volume seems louder than my 3GS. While I didn’t get around to testing the speakerphone, the external speaker found on the rear/bottom actually did a decent job streaming Slacker without a headset.

Overall, I’ve quite enjoyed my Samsung Galaxy S review hardware and any of the US models should make for a fine smartphone. But there have been some instances of UI lag which you should be aware of. And I’m not alone in this observation, as the experience has been corroborated by my pals at Slashgear. Given the higher-end hardware specs, including 1 Ghz processor, I imagine it’ll merely be a matter of pushing some software optimizations out – perhaps accompanying the promised Android 2.2 Froyo update later this year.

Atari May Plunder Its Classics for Remakes

2010-07-17T09:24:00.002-07:00

Atari’s not the company it used to be — literally, it’s been swallowed up by a succession of larger companies since the 1980s — but it can still milk name recognition and classic video games.

The company, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infogrames, is remaking the Atari 2600 classic Haunted House, and a couple of listings on Gamefly suggest that Centipede and Star Raiders remakes could be next.

Given the timing, this wouldn’t surprise me. E3 was crowded with remakes of well-known or in some cases forgotten video game franchises. Fondly remembered games like Goldeneye and NBA Jam are being brought back to life, while franchises that never really went away, such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Mortal Kombat, are going back to their 2D roots. These are safe bets in the midst of a games industry slump. If Atari wants to jump on the nostalgia train, now’s the time.

The difference between Atari’s remakes and the examples I saw at E3 is that Atari’s games are so old, there’s very little to build from. Haunted House could be a great game, but it’s impossible to say whether the remake is faithful to the original, because the original is so primitive. If Star Raiders gets remade, it’ll probably resemble Wing Commander more than anything else.

Basically, I feel the same way about Atari’s games as I do about the upcoming surge of movies based on very old video games. They won’t necessarily be bad, but they’re just blank slates with recognizable names.

Will There Ever Be a Nexus Two?

2010-07-17T09:24:00.001-07:00

Google has announced that it’s received its last batch of Nexus One phones. When they’re gone, they’re gone–and since Google announced back in May that it had decided to shutter its online phone store, the company will be ending its experiment in direct sales to the masses when the last N1 goes out the door.

One question which I think remains unanswered: Does the imminent death of the Nexus One signal the end of the concept of the Googlephone–if “Googlephone” is defined as an Android handset for which Google is the maker of record and the sole company responsible for the software experience? When Google decided to wind down direct sales of the phone, it said it would work to sell it through retailers. But I don’t think it ever addressed directly what it intended to do once the Nexus One was discontinued. Will it be content to let phone makers do with Android as they will from now on? Or does it still want the opportunity to make a phone that fits its vision of what an Android handset should be as closely as possible?

What Happens When You Hack the Droid X?

2010-07-17T09:23:00.001-07:00

If the Droid X's U.S. launch had just one pockmark, it was the hoopla that transpired when one Android enthusiast declared the phone would become a brick when hacked.

It all started when My Droid World forum admin p3droid declared that a chip called eFuse was triggered to blow when the Droid X's digitally-signed bootloader is tampered with, rendering the phone unusable. Attempts to run custom ROMs on the phone, such as Cyanogen, would likely produce a Motorola-branded doorstop that only the company could fix. MobileCrunch's Devin Coldewey ran with the story, as did other sites, and a debate ensued on whether the phone does, in fact, have a hardware-killing security feature.

So Engadget cleared the air with Motorola, who said the phone is not rigged to blow, but it does go into "Recovery Mode" when booted with unauthorized software. This is for security reasons, and for meeting carrier, partner and legal requirements, Motorola said. Re-installing Motorola-approved software restores the Droid X to normal.

Okay, great. But I think the debate yesterday was misdirected. The problem is not that the Droid X becomes a brick when hacked, but that it cannot be hacked. While the lack of a phone-killing security feature means hackers are at a greater liberty to tinker, they won't get anywhere. Motorola Milestone, the original Droid's overseas sibling, has the same digitally-signed bootloader, and its security measures haven't been broken yet. There are workarounds for loading custom ROMs on the Milestone, but they are difficult to perform, and there are other drawbacks, as explained by TheUnlockr.

Any tech topic with the word "brick" in it makes for a better headline, but I'd rather see the discussion focus on why Motorola doesn't want its users hacking the Droid X, rather than what nasty things will happen to the phone if they do.