This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Reading List

According to AOL, one of the most prevalent spam subject lines in 2005 was "Donald Trump Wants You -- Please Respond." Another frequent pitch played on the belief that the tech world just gives stuff away to people in the know: "Get an Apple iPod Nano, PS3 or Xbox360 for Free."

Stock scams, phony transaction records and cheap offers for everything from pharmaceuticals to mortgages were among the other most common brands of spam in 2005.

Spam-detection experts at AOL and other companies say these pitches are emerging from tightly run scam rings that are getting more savvy at using "zombie" PCs -- regular people's computers surreptitiously compromised by viruses and other vulnerabilities -- and other methods to hide their tracks.

The best protections remain the same: Keep antivirus software up to date and don't open links or attachments in dicey-looking e-mails.

Posted by mcapehart on December 31, 2005 at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Mobility, News, Reading List

Jeremy Hermanns was on Alaska Airlines Flight #536, which suffered de-pressurization.  The MD-80 airplane tore a hole in its fuselage at 30,000 feet.

Amazingly, no one was seriously injured. What's more remarkable, Jeremy was sharp enough, and quick enough to take photos of the event, using his Treo 650.

Read more here.

Posted by mcapehart on December 31, 2005 at 7:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Entertainment, News

With New Years Eve coming at the end of the week, it will be time to reflect on the past year, time to snuggle with our loved ones...and time for scientists to add an extra second to the new year.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has announced that it will add one second to December 31, 2005, in an effort to keep the official Earth time up to speed with the planet's rotation.

The extra second will be added to all atomic clocks around the world, all of which follow Coordinated Universal Time (CUT).

Coordinated Universal Time coincides with winter time in London. On the U.S. East Coast, the extra second occurs just before 7 p.m. on New Year's Eve. Atomic clocks at that moment will read 23:59:60 before rolling over to all zeros.

A leap second is added to keep uniform timekeeping within 0.9 second of the Earth's rotational time, which can speed up or slow down because of many factors, including ocean tides. The first leap second was added on June 30, 1972, according to NIST, an arm of the U.S. Commerce Department.

Since 1999 until recently, the two time standards have been in close enough synch to escape any need to add a leap second, NIST said.

Although it is possible to have a negative leap second -- that is, a second deducted from Coordinated Universal Time -- so far all have been add-ons, reflecting the Earth's general slowing trend due to tidal breaking.

Deciding when to introduce a leap second is the responsibility of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, a standards-setting body. Under an international pact, the preference for leap seconds is December 31 or June 30.

Precise time measurements are needed for high-speed communications systems among other modern technologies.

Posted by amyz on December 31, 2005 at 4:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Home / Office

Om Malik mulls over whether or not we need faster broadband, and the discussion is carried over to Ars Technica. If you're currently trying to decide whether or not you should move to the more costly broadband option, this is worth reading.

Om covers the rate at which we can download or stream things and has decided that we are simply buying , “a perception of speed.” It's important to remember that in most house holds we don't use the Internet for only one thing at a time. When you begin watching streaming videos, talking to a friend via VOIP, and downloading the latest video game installer, Om's figures begin to break down.

Posted by sarvinc on December 30, 2005 at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Mobility

NEC will be the first to produce laptops equipped with Intel's newest low-power consumption processors. Yonah, the code-name for the dual-core version of Intel's Pentium M processor for laptops, is on par with AMD's Athlon 64 X2 processor and more efficient.

NEC plans to release the laptop in 2006 for just under $2000 equipped with 512 MB of main memory a 100GB hard-disk drive, 14.1-in. LCD, DVD Super Multi drive (DVD-R/+R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW/+RW), 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth, weigh 2 kilograms, and run for about 4 hours.

Posted by sarvinc on December 30, 2005 at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services

Gravee, recently launched, has an interesting business model. In addition to aggregating search results from Google, MSN and Yahoo (Alexa coming soon), it also allows publishers to claim their site and, theoretically, get a piece of Gravee’s revenue.

Here’s how it works:

With Gravee’s AdShare program, when a user clicks an ad on Gravee, up to 70% of the ad revenue generated as a result is divided between the 10 sites included in the natural search results on the page (i.e. 70%/10 = 7% of ad revenue to each Web site on the page - for every ad that is clicked). Register your site now to start collecting your share of Gravee’s ad revenue.

Gravee also shares up to 35% of revenue with publisers that join their affiliate program and place their search box on their site. This will be an interesting way of driving traffic to their site.

Site claiming is done via whois information - meaning you must be in control of your domain name to claim the blog. Another way for them to accomplish this would be to ask the site owner to put a piece of code on her/his site.

Posted by adriano on December 30, 2005 at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services

You might recall that just a few months ago, invites for the WordPress.com blogging service began showing up on eBay, something that WordPress developer Matt Mullenweg greeted with thinly disguised glee.

The Windows Live Messenger team over at Microsoft is pleased as punch that their invites have begun showing up on eBay as well.

Can't wait for the public beta and don't mind spending some money? Head over to eBay to get yourself an invite (or, hold on a few days and you'll probably get an invite from a friend that is already part of the program). 

Posted by adriano on December 30, 2005 at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News

Looks like the un-hackable might actually be pretty hackable after all. Because fans modified the first Xbox so heavily, Microsoft aimed to create something as difficult as possible to hack.

However even Chris Satchell of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group has admitted, “no system was fool-proof and that, with enough time and dedication, the security on the Xbox 360 would be broken,” and it looks like that's about to happen. Engadget is reporting that Spong is about to release a much anticipated modchip for the Xbox 360. While we can't be positive Spong has actually hacked the 360, and the Engadget article does need to be taken with a grain of salt, the point is that it's eventually going to happen.

Posted by sarvinc on December 30, 2005 at 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Guides, News, Reading List, Web services

Kevin Gunn posted a simple email address hack for Gmail users.

He discovered that by adding +ebay after your Gmail user name (e.g. steve+ebay@gmail.com) you could create a quick and disposable address for dealing with eBay or Amazon (+amazon) or anything.

Replies to these disposable addresses can be marked with a Gmail label on arrival using a filter. This enables you quickly to see all messages relating to a particular service and to track any potential on-selling of your address to spammers while protecting your real email address from abuse.

This is a very cool hack.

Read more here.

Posted by mcapehart on December 30, 2005 at 6:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Home / Office, News

Pioneer Electronics Inc. Tuesday announced one of the industry’s first Blu-ray Disc computer drives, expected to revolutionize digital and high-definition media storage.

The new Pioneer BDR-101A will utilize shorter wavelength blue lasers in order to store up to 25 gigabytes of information on a single layer Blu-ray Disc. 

It is expected to begin shipping in the first quarter of 2006.

This first generation product will be targeted primarily to professional users and serious enthusiasts, generally the first to adopt new technology.  In particular, content creators will depend on Blu-ray Disc writers to test and evaluate high definition consumer Blu-ray Disc titles during the authoring process before replication.  The drive will come equipped with a data recording application to transfer digital files to Blu-ray Discs.

As the market for high definition video camcorders grows, users will increasingly rely on the Blu-ray Disc drive to store massive amounts of HD video.  Likewise, a person with a television tuner on his or her personal computer could use the drive to record high definition television shows for later viewing.  The drive also will be able to play consumer Blu-ray Disc movie titles on BD-ROM discs and will play and record standard DVD media.

As one of the first products to utilize Blu-ray Disc technology, the drive significantly increases storage capacity, while reducing the number of discs currently needed to back up computer hard drives, digital files and applications.

Posted by mcapehart on December 29, 2005 at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Home / Office, News

Apple is positioning OS X Tiger as a 'podcasting server' for education markets. Basically they are touting the built in blog software that comes with Tiger and transforming a Xserve into a 'podcasting server.'

While technically this is correct, given this reasoning any server that has blogging software installed on it (i.e. Wordpress or Movable Type or whatever else) is transformed from a mundane server into a podcasting server. Under this perspective, the very server on which this site runs is a "podcasting" server

Apple does mention that this 'podcasting server' is powered by Blojsom, but the whole thing smells of trying to play around someone who may not know that any old server can do what Apple is claiming is unique to Tiger.

Posted by adriano on December 29, 2005 at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Productivity

The Can-Spam, according to the FTC web site "establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them."

The law, which became effective January 1, 2004, covers email whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service, including content on a Web site. A "transactional or relationship message" – email that facilitates an agreed-upon transaction or updates a customer in an existing business relationship – may not contain false or misleading routing information, but otherwise is exempt from most provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act.

The FTC released a report stating that the so-called CAN-SPAM Act is "effective in providing protection for consumers." 2005 has been a big year for lawsuits against spammers.  Many result in large fines as well as significant jail time.

The CAN-SPAM Act has permitted the FTC to actively pursue lawsuits against spammers and has spurred adoption of commercial e-mail best practices, which many corporations have taken. This includes things such as the opt out" link and the sender's actual postal address.  

What is not really knows, is how effective the law has been so far. Statistics compiled by antispam companies show that the total number of junk e-mail messages has leaped 62 percent in the last year. At the same time, filtering technology has dramatically improved, which could account for in-boxes not completely overflowing. So, while corporations are cracking down, spammers are getting smarter.  Its a daily struggle just to keep up.

For more information on the CAN-SPAN act, go to the FTC site here.  For the FTC report, clickhere.

Posted by amyz on December 29, 2005 at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services

This is a little late for Christmas, but what a great tool. 

I wish I had learned of this before I was waiting on a couple of Christmas packages to arrive (late).

If you’re looking to keep an eye on where your packages are at a given time, then check out PackageMapper.

This is a free service which will let you enter a tracking number for UPS, FedEx, or the United States Postal Service and map the shipping route on a map powered by Google Maps.

Posted by mcapehart on December 29, 2005 at 4:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: Home / Office, News

According to a recent poll conducted by the Associated Press, personal computers, cell phones and high-speed Internet access are considered essentil to getting by for millions of Americans who are showing the early signs of addiction to the next wave of high-tech toys. 

This poll is riding on the wave of new devices, such as MP3 players, personal video recorders, Tivos and HDTV.  And its only going to get worse says some industry insiders.

The high demand items for the holidays this year are MP3 players, DVD players, video game consoles (especially the Xbox 360), and cell phones (which always have a new crop ready for the holiday season). 

The reason their popularity has gone up, cheaper pricing and higher mobility.  Also, they are becoming easier to use.  In some cases, you cant function without some of these devices. 

Schools have been giving away iPods and PDAs to students to help with their classwork. 

It seems people think that by being connected every which way possible, it will improve their quality of life.  Some people need to be this way due to their job.  Others just use it as a way to play with their toys and have fun. And still others use it as an escape from the real world.

Whatever the reason, the US is addicted to technology.  But, we arent the only one.  Look across the water to our friends in Japan.  Where would they be without their high tech gadgetry?  Then again, as the US gets inundated with more and more high tech, where will we be in the next 5 years?  Makes a person think....at least long enough to call someone on their cell to tell them what they read on their wireless PDA that is streaming news from their favorite web site.

Posted by amyz on December 28, 2005 at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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This entry was posted in the following categories: News, Web services

Google's Zeitgeist, which shows what people have been searching for lately, is always a fun pasttime, and we look forward to their year-end Zeitgeists more and more every year.

This year's 2005 Year-End Google Zeitgeist, just released, is no exception. Too much data to sum up here, so head on over to Google and check out all the graphs.

Posted by adriano on December 28, 2005 at 6:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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