ajaxWindows simulates an entire operating system—without actually being one—inside a single browser window. The application runs on Firefox 2.x and Internet Explorer 6 or 7: Opera and Safari users are not invited to the party.
Mozilla creating a foundation to improve email - Boing Boing
The goals for the new company are: * Take care of Thunderbird users * Move Thunderbird forward to provide better, deeper email solutions * Create a better user experience for a range of Internet communications -- how does / should email work with IM, RSS, VoIP, SMS, site-specific email, etc? * Spark the types of community involvement and innovation that we've seen around web "browsing" and Firefox.
Sun to sell Windows Server boxes
Microsoft and Sun announced at a press conference that Sun has signed up to become a Windows Server Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), selling Sun x64-based servers that come bundled with Microsoft Windows Server 2003.
Report: Insiders cause more computer security problems than viruses
The Computer Security Institute has just released the 2007 edition (PDF) of its long-running "Computer Crime and Security Survey," and it offers some dreary news for overworked computer security admins: average losses from attacks have surged this year. More surprising is the finding that the single biggest security threat faced by corporate networks doesn't come from virus writers any more; instead, it comes from company insiders. It's internal users who are now causing the greatest number of problems, though they may also cause minimal damage. Hiding porn on an office PC, using unlicensed software, and abusing e-mail all count as security incidents, though all pale in comparison to one successful phishing trip. These sorts of internal incidents can be pesky, though, and 59 percent of all respondents had to deal with them in the last year. The CSI study has a major weakness: it's an "informal" study distributed to CSI members and conference-goers. The estimates of money lost to damages are, in one author's own words, "estimates." "Some of them," in fact, "are probably altogether approximate guesses."
Still, the study has been sampling this group of computer security people for a decade, so the report's conclusions seem to accurately track their perceptions of security; whether they represent reality is another question.
Intel picks up gaming physics engine for forthcoming GPU product
Late last week, Intel announced the purchase of gaming development tools maker Havok, authors of the famous Havok physic engine used in a whole raft of top-shelf games like BioShock, Oblivion, Half-Life 2, and Halo 2. According to a statement from Intel, "Havok will operate its business as usual, which will allow them to continue developing products that are offered across all platforms in the industry." So if Havok is going about business as usual, then why did Intel pick them up? Indeed, why would Intel buy a gaming dev tools maker in the first place? The answer to both questions, of course, is Larrabee.
Yahoo acquires online collaboration suite Zimbra
Yahoo has acquired online collaboration suite Zimbra for $350 million, the two companies announced this afternoon. Yahoo said that it hopes to expand its presence in universities, businesses, and through ISPs with the help of Zimbra's offerings. Zimbra currently offers open source e-mail, calendaring, and contact management solutions that can be used both on- and offline, and services small businesses and educational institutions. The company also encourages users to create "Zimlets," which tie information from other web services into Zimbra's suite. The Zimlets essentially act as widgets that can be customized and placed around Zimbra's e-mail or calendar tools so that users can access information quickly and conveniently. The companies believe that Yahoo's broad reach with its advertising and content network, combined with Zimlets, will make for a nice pairing.
Industry players working on standard for VMs
The issue of incompatible virtual machine formats has the attention of the major players in the virtualization industry, so three of the biggest are teaming up with some hardware makers in hopes of developing a single format for virtual machines. Under the aegis of the Distributed Management Task Force, Microsoft, VMware, XenSource, Dell, HP, and IBM have come up with a draft specification.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Facebook dismisses privacy fears
Facebook's 40 million users should not worry that personal details will be available to anyone searching the net. That was the message from executives at the social network who are in London to set up their first overseas office. Facebook's plan to make user profiles available to search engines has provoked anxiety amongst some users and attacks from privacy campaigners. But the firm's head of privacy said that the idea that personal data would be exposed was "completely wrong". "The only data that will be available is your profile picture and your name - and then only if you agree that your profile should be searchable,"
Social web sites often easy pickings for phishers, malware writers
Social networking sites are attractive to hackers not only because of potential security holes in the applications themselves, but the fact that the very nature of the site works as a way to spread attacks to more people. "In such a scenario, the attacker may use the legitimacy of the Web site to attract victims of subsequent attacks," the Symantec report said. "Sites with large user bases, such as MySpace, have already been abused in this manner."
New iPods reengineered to block synching with Linux - Boing Boing
The latest iPods have a cryptographic "checksum" in their song databases that prevents third-party applications from synching with the portable music players. This means that iPods can no longer be used with operating systems where iTunes doesn't exist -- like Linux, where gtkpod and Amarok are common free tools used by iPod owners to load their players.
Miro needs your donations to build the future of Internet video - Boing Boing
Miro (formerly known as Democracy Player) needs your donations -- the project is trying to raise $50,000 to pay programmers and designers to make its player even better. It incorporates three different technologies that make watching videos easier and better than any of the proprietary players like Windows Media Player or iTunes. These technologies are VLC, a free and open video playback engine that plays all video formats, no matter where they come from; RSS, so that you can subscribe to "feeds" of your favorite videos (including subscribing to feeds of YouTube videos matching your keywords); and BitTorrent, so that you can download files without costing the people who host them -- so the more popular a file is, the cheaper it is to host.
Google adds presentations to Google Docs | Lifehacker Australia
Google's launched the latest in its online office application arsenal - presentations. Posting on the official Google Blog, software engineer Attila Bodis said: "Starting today, presentations -- whether imported from existing files or created using the new slide editor -- are listed alongside documents and spreadsheets in the Google Docs document list. They can be edited, shared, and published using the familiar Google Docs interface, with several collaborators working on a slide deck simultaneously, in real time. When it's time to present, participants can simply click a link to follow along as the presenter takes the audience through the slideshow. Participants are connected through Google Talk and can chat about the presentation as they're watching." They've also parked some screenshots on a Picasa gallery here.
New York Times cans fees on website and archive | Lifehacker Australia
Two years after imposing a $US50 subscription fee for people to view its archives and columnists' writing online, the New York Times has decided to reverse the decision and open up all areas of its website for free browsing. It seems to be a global trend in the online world, but I thought this was particularly cool - in addition to opening up its website, the Times will also make its archives from 1987 to the present freely available, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.
Open a Set of Bookmarks in One Click? | Lifehacker Australia
The solution is actually very simple; all you need to do is create a bookmark folder. To get started, right-click your bookmark toolbar and select New Folder... and give the folder a name befitting the group of bookmarks you'd like to open at one time. Then just start bookmarking every page you want to open (if you've already got them open, you can bookmark them in one fell swoop the Bookmark all tabs shortcut) and file them in that folder. Next time you fire up your 'fox and you want to open that collection of bookmarks at once, either middle-click the folder in your bookmarks toolbar or go to Bookmarks -> Folder Name and then select the Open in All Tabs option.
Set up bookmarks for weekday or weekend reading with Morning Coffee | Lifehacker Australia
"If you prefer to have different sites open on different days of the week - ie you've got your weekday faves and different weekend faves - download the 'Morning Coffee' extension. You can then save different sites for different days (individual days, M-F only, weekend only, M, W, F only or the T-days only) - what a choice! Then you only have to click the cuppa icon in the toolbar and the day's sites automatically open.
Best Free Software to Unlock Your Favourite Hardware | Lifehacker Australia
Your favourite gadgets have more functionality than their default software exposes, but it rules that several software applications are built to unlock that potential for free. Whether it's your iPod, Xbox, router or iPhone, we've covered some incredibly ambitious free software projects that unlock features and enable unauthorised but oh-so-useful applications to run on them.
How to replace Windows completely with Ubuntu | Lifehacker Australia
APC magazine offers up a 10 part guide to replacing Windows with Ubuntu, written by former Atomic editor Ashton Mills.
Ten Features You Might Not Be Using | Lifehacker Australia
The official Gmail blog has compiled their picks for the top 10 least known Gmail features.
How to check that you're enrolled to vote | Lifehacker Australia
The pundits are predicting that with the APEC circus behind us, the federal election may be called at any time. Due to recent changes to the electoral laws, the electoral rolls close within a couple of days of the election being called - so now's the time to make sure that your enrolment is up to date.
Roundup of Federal Election websites | Lifehacker Australia
The Australian's Media section had an interesting roundup of the websites which are springing up to cover (and cash in on) the upcoming federal election. It says that Google is going to launch its own election website tomorrow, replete with "video footage, user-generated content and customised information feeds."
Google Election site now live | Lifehacker Australia
http://www.google.com.au/election2007/
Keyboard shortcuts | Lifehacker Australia
Learn and look up keyboard shortcuts for a wide variety of online and desktop applications from Firefox to Excel to Google Apps at the KeyXL keyboard shortcut database.
Virtualisation | Lifehacker Australia
VMWare recently released an open source version of its virtual machine tools. The new product will be housed at Sourceforge and known as Open Virtual Machine Tools.
Phishing | Lifehacker Australia
Keep your identity from getting stolen online with eight effective methods to avoid phishing
Microsoft updates Windows without user permission, apologises - Software - www.itnews.com.au
Even though the updates ended up being benign and vital to the function of Windows Updates, such a breach of trust could end up harming Microsoft's reputation. Over the last few weeks, without user approval, Windows Update has updated nine small executable files in both Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Microsoft sued over WGA spyware allegations in China
Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage woes aren't likely to end any time soon. Soon after a global WGA failure caused by human error comes word that a privacy suit has been brought against the company in China over alleged WGA behavior. This joins similar suits in the US that have described WGA as "spyware."
EU court comes down hard on Microsoft in antitrust appeal
Three and a half years after the European Commission first found Microsoft to be abusing its dominant market position in Europe, the EU's Court of First Instance has smacked down Microsoft's appeal and upheld the original €497 million ($688 million) fine against the company.
FSFE, Samba: A triumph for freedom of choice and competition
FSFE have a press release today about a victory in the EU over
Microsoft's anti-competitive behaviour on file/print serving: The EC
have upheld the requirement that Microsoft release interoperability
specifications, and they agree with FSFE that Samba must not be
excluded from this access. Carlo Piana, FSFE's legal counsel: "FSFE and the Samba Team welcome the decision of the court. This is a milestone for competition. It puts an end to the notion that deliberate obfuscation of standards and designed lock-in is an acceptable business model and forces Microsoft back into competing on the grounds of software technology."
States to judge: Extend Microsoft antitrust oversight by five years
After a 2002 ruling that Microsoft abused its monopoly power in the operating system and web browser markets, the company, the individual states, and the DoJ signed off on a consent decree that would govern the company's conduct. The states originally asked for ten years of monitoring, but the judge decided half of that would be sufficient; the decree is scheduled to expire in November of this year.
Company patents playlists, sues everyone
A company called Premier International Associates has filed suit against a slew of tech companies over infringement on two of the company's patents. Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Viacom, Real, Napster, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Nokia, and Sandisk are named in one of the two suits filed this week, while Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Gateway, and Yahoo are named in another. All of the above companies are accused of violating Premier's patents for an electronic "List building system"—the older of which was applied for in 1997 and issued in 2001. The patents describe what essentially comes down to a playlist.Patent Reform Act close to vote, Google and others weigh in on changesThe Patent Reform Act looks on schedule for a vote in both the House and the Senate within the next couple of weeks, and companies are lining up to make their opinions heard. Google, for example, spelled out its position on Tuesday: it supports the legislation as a way to "defend against frivolous patent claims from parties gaming the system to forestall competition or reap windfall profits." The problems are clear enough: patent infringement lawsuits have tripled in the last decade, patent applications are increasing faster than the number of patent examiners available to handle them, and the triple damages that can come with "willful" infringement scare many companies away from even examining the patents filed by competitors.
Head of US copyright says "DMCA does what it is supposed to do" - Boing Boing
Marybeth Peters, the US Register of Copyrights, has come out in favor of the controversial 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, saying "it did what it was supposed to do." The DMCA makes it possible to sue companies that make music, video and ebook players that play back DRM file-formats without permission, giving Apple the right to sue Real for making its own music player to run on the iPod.
With trial date looming, RIAA tries to avoid facing a jury
The over 20,000 file-sharing lawsuits that have been filed over the past few years share a single distinction: not one of them has made it to trial. The RIAA is trying to keep Virgin Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas from a jury trial, filing a motion for summary adjudication on some specific aspects of the case.
Microsoft patents the "El Dorado" of audio watermarks
The new watermark was designed to stand up to a set of "plausible attacks" listed in a Request for Proposals from the RIAA, including: * Two successive D/A and A/D conversions * Data reduction coding techniques such as MP3 * Adaptive transform coding (ATRAC), adaptive subband coding * Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) * Dolby AC2 and AC3 systems * Applying additive or multiplicative noise * Applying a second Embedded Signal, using the same system, to a single program fragment, * Frequency response distortion corresponding to normal analogue frequency response controls such as bass, mid and treble controls, with maximum variation of 15 dB with respect to the original signal * Applying frequency notches with possible frequency hopping
Report: fair use adds $2.2 trillion to US economy each year
studies that look at the economic impact of fair use. That was the goal behind a new report (PDF) from the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA). Their provocative finding? "In 2006, fair use-related industry value added was $2.2 trillion, 16.6 percent of total US current dollar GDP." The CCIA is the group that has launched a Defend Fair Use campaign and has filed a complaint with the FTC about overly-broad copyright notices in books and on sports broadcasts. Now, it's challenging the "more rights are always better" approach of groups like the Copyright Alliance with its new report. Not everyone sees a contradiction between the positions espoused by the two groups; Microsoft, for instance, is a member of both.
Autodesk sued for $10 million after invoking DMCA to stop eBay resales
A Seattle man is suing Autodesk for abusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in an attempt to restrict the resale of its software. The plaintiff, Tim Vernor, alleges that Autodesk has repeatedly sent copyright infringement notices to eBay, where he has tried to sell legal copies of Autodesk software, because the company does not want the used copies to compete with new sales of the software.
Leaked Media Defender e-mails reveal secret government project
Peer-to-peer (P2P) poisoning company MediaDefender suffered an embarrassing leak this weekend, when almost 700MB of internal company e-mail was distributed on the Internet via BitTorrent. The e-mails reveal many aspects of MediaDefender's elaborate P2P disruption strategies, illuminate previously undisclosed details about the MiiVi scandal, and bring to light details regarding MediaDefender's collaboration with the New York Attorney General's office on a secret law enforcement project.
ISO reforms proposed in response to OOXML shenanigans
Late last month, evidence emerged indicating that Microsoft has used financial incentives to influence the outcome of Office Open XML (OOXML) fast-track approval in various national standards bodies. Although ISO ended up voting against fast-track approval for OOXML, the company's efforts have created doubts about the reliability of the standards process. In response to these revelations, Freecode CEO Geir Isene has proposed several ISO reforms and calls for an "investigation" to determine if OOXML "was unduly put on the ISO fast track."
Google goes to court in Australia over sponsored links
Google appeared in court last week in Australia to fight charges of "misleading and deceptive conduct" regarding its sponsored links.
2Clix backtracks on Whirlpool lawsuit - Telecommunications - www.itnews.com.au
2Clix Australia has dropped its controversial courtcase against broadband community forum, Whirlpool.A lawsuit brought forth against Whirlpool for alleged "injurious falsehood" has been dropped by accounting software firm 2Clix Australia.
“Simon Wright and the Whirlpool legal team can confirm that they received informal notice from an employee of 2Clix that there may be an intention on the part of 2Clix to withdraw their Statement of Claim against Simon,” according to a statement issued by the popular broadband discussion forum.
But Whirlpool is not counting its chickens until they’ve hatched, noting that the Queensland Supreme Court records still show legal action is current and active.
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