August 12, 2011
by sjvn01
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I’ve been using cryptic passwords since I cut my computing teeth on an IBM 370. I never liked using passwords like xkcd1234EMC2. They may have been more “secure,” but they were hellish to remember. I still use them today, but the brilliant Internet cartoon xkcd by Randall Munroe has just shown me that I, and many security experts, have been idiots for years. Read the cartoon below and you’ll see what I mean.
August 12, 2011
by sjvn01
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Linux and Apple’s iPhones, iPods, and iPads usually get along about as well as cats and dogs. Oh sure, you can root a jailbroken iPhone to boot Linux, but that’s just a stunt. And, if you don’t mind living dangerously, you can use the popular Linux music application Banshee to manage your music collection on iPhones or iPods. Generally speaking, though, when you try to bring Linux and Apple devices together, the fur flies. Until now. Today, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux introduced an iPhone streaming music app that lets you stream music from the Ubuntu One cloud to iPhones and iPod.
According to Canonical, “The new Ubuntu One Music Streaming app for iPhone comes packed full of great functionality and an elegant new UI, so you can wirelessly sync your entire music collection saved to your Ubuntu One personal cloud. Along with supporting MP3?s and non-DRM iTunes song formats we’ve made managing your music on the fly easy, so you can browse and search by artist, album, or song title. You can also build and listen to playlists and control your listening with skip, shuffle and repeat functions.”
August 11, 2011
by sjvn01
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I quite like Google’s Chrome operating system (OS)–a Linux variant that use the Chrome Web browser as its interface–but as it’s being shipping today, Chrome OS has problems. Fortunately, in the latest Chrome OS stable channel release, Google is finally addressing some of these rough spots.
To put it to the test, I installed the new Chrome OS, Chrome version 13.0.782.108, to my Samsung Chromebook. It took a while to install-not the installation itself, that took about a minute-but to get it going. I had to click the update button several times to get things going. I’m not the only one who found that to be the case.
Once installed, everything ran smoothly. While I was making sure nothing had been broken in the update, it occurred to me that one neat thing about Chromebooks is that, more so than with conventional PCs, you don’t need to update your hardware to get major new functionality. With Chrome OS, or any cloud-based operating system, the goodness is baked into the operating system and the Web. Ah, if only that promise had been better kept in this release of Chrome OS.
August 10, 2011
by sjvn01
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In case you’ve been under a rock for the last decade, you might not know that today’s technology wars aren’t over who has the best prices, the most features, or the greatest quality. No, in 2011, instead of working on innovating, tech. giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle, are now wasting their resources on intellectual property (IP) lawsuits. So, perhaps it should come as no surprise that networking powerhouse Cisco and social networking force Twitter, is joining the Linux patent protection group, the Open Invention Network (OIN).
The OIN was formed in 2005 by IBM, Sony, Philips N.V. and Linux distributors Red Hat Inc. and Novell. Then, as now, the group was created to defend Linux from patent trolls and other attacks from patent holders. It tries to do this with its own patents which are then available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against Linux. While it hasn’t been done, these patents could also, in theory, be used by the OIN, or an OIN member, against a hostile company in a patent war.
August 9, 2011
by sjvn01
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The mobile world is locked up in one gigantic legal battle in which every smartphone company is suing every other company for patent violations. That’s dumb. What’s even dumber though is that Apple has just succeeded in getting a German court to grant a preliminary injunction against the distribution of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 throughout the entire European Union (EU) (with the exception of The Netherlands) on the grounds it infringes on Apple’s iPad design.
This decision has nothing to do with patents or copyrights. It has nothing to do with the lawsuits swirling around Android. This particular case was just about the design, the look of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and that’s it. Now, I want you to click on this PDF copy of (European] Community design no. 000181607-000. Now, take a long hard look at it. What do you see?
I’ll tell you what I see, it’s a freaking tablet. Yes, it looks like an iPad. But, it looks just as much like every tablet that’s ever existed or ever will exist. It’s a tablet.
August 9, 2011
by sjvn01
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Who doesn’t trust their search engine? When we need to find something, we all turn to Google, Bing, or Yahoo. We shouldn’t be so trusting through. On Bing, cyber-crooks are now placing ads to ensnare people who want to switch to the Chrome Web-browser. Now, we find that some U.S. Internet Service Providers (ISP)s are sending your search queries to a third-party proxy company instead of your search engine of choice.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), several recent research studies have revealed that “some or all traffic to major search engines, including Bing, Yahoo! and (sometimes) Google, is being directed to mysterious third party proxies.”
Further research by the EFF and the ICSI Networking Group, a non-profit organization that researches Internet architecture and related networking issues, has revealed that your searches are sent to a company called Paxfire.