Thursday, November 1, 2007

Byte Into It - 31 Oct 07

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Featured Windows Download: Micromanage Your Widescreen Monitor with AutoSizer
Windows only: Freeware application AutoSizer automatically resizes and moves application windows to specific, user-defined sizes and screen locations as soon as they're opened. That means that if you've got a widescreen monitor with the perfect window layout that packs every last pixel with useful information, you can save each window size and location with AutoSizer and restore the perfect layout automatically, day after day, as soon as you launch the applications.

25+ Sources For Creative Commons Content
25+ sources of content licensed under Creative Commons inc: Audio, Video, Text & Search

Making Documents Look Much Better in MS Word | Lifehacker Australia
mMany of us use Microsoft Word, particularly in the workplace. Like Excel, it's a fairly feature packed program which many people never delve into. Web Worker Daily wrote up a list of tips for making your Word documents look better.

Manage iCal or Google Calendars with Sunbird/Lightning | Lifehacker Australia
All platforms: Add tasks, set appointments and keep on top of your schedule with Mozilla Sunbird and Lightning, the free calendar managers that function as a stand-alone client or extension to the Thunderbird e-mail program. Version 0.7 of Sunbird/Lightning touts a redesign of the user interface and task-adding dialog, along with user-requested functions like adding tasks in different timezones, more customizable recurring events and an improved "Today" glance panel. Sunbird and Lightning store information in a SQLite format, but can also work with iCal data or Google Calendar through an extension. Both are free downloads and work on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Avoid Leopard teething issues | Lifehacker Australia
Apple's put up a support page for Leopard installation issues and so far the top support topic is how to deal with the "blue screen of death" phenomenon reported by CNET. Hopefully FileMaker users are already aware that it won't run on the new Mac OSX, Leopard.

Help identify mystery music at iden.tify.us | Lifehacker Australia
The beta of iden.tify.us allows people to upload snippets of the songs they wish to identify, and any description they can provide (for example, the radio show or movie where they heard it). Visitors to the site can use the inbuilt audio player to listen to the snippets and then reply.

3 Network to offer Skype 3G phone | Lifehacker Australia
The Skype phones will offer free calls and SMS between Skype users, and normal 3 rates for other calls. The handset will have a dedicated Skype button. Local pricing hasn't been announced, although the model launching in the UK this week costs around $120.

HTC to launch Touch Cruise PDA phone in November
The Touch Cruise, originally the HTC Polaris, is powered by a Qualcomm MSM 7200 400MHz processor and Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 OS (operating system), the sources noted. In addition, the new PDA phone, equipped with a 2.8-inch QVGA screen and a 3-megapixel camera, supports HTC's TouchFLO technology and the HSUPA (high speed upload packet access) standard, the sources added.

PC World - Faster USB 3.0 Is Coming
Intel and other companies have formed a group to promote the USB 3.0, which should deliver more than ten times the speed of the existing USB 2.0 standard. The third-generation Universal Serial Bus interconnect will transfer data at speeds up to 4.8Gbit/s, ten times faster than USB 2.0's 480MBit/s. It will be backwards-compatible with USB 2.0, which is backwards-compatible with the first USB 1.1 definition.

WARNING: device driver updates causing Vista to deactivate | APC Magazine
WARNING: device driver updates causing Vista to deactivate. Something as small as swapping the video card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation. If you install and activate Vista using some Microsoft drivers downloaded from Windows Update (which is a very common practice) but then discover that a manufacturer driver gives better functionality (as is often the case for audio, video, storage and network drivers) you are running the risk that the drivers use different reporting models and will register as a physical change.

Microsoft antes up $240 million for a piece of the Facebook action
All of the recent flirting between Facebook and Microsoft has turned into hot equity action, as the two companies have announced that Microsoft will make a $240 million investment in the social networking site. In addition, Microsoft will begin selling ads for Facebook outside of the US and will become the site's exclusive ad provider in the US. Facebook's value is not in the software itself—which could be duplicated relatively easily by a small group of programmers—but in the vast social networks the site has gathered, networks that contain information about people's interests and desires that would be invaluable for any marketing company.

Microsoft apologizes for Windows Update snafus
Microsoft has been having all sorts of problems with automatic Windows updates lately. First, it was reports of users who had turned off automatic update installations finding that their computers had installed and rebooted anyway without their consent, then some enterprise Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) users found out that Windows Desktop Search (WDS) had been installed without administrator approval. Microsoft acknowledged the first problem but denied the second, then relented and issued an apology via WSUS product manager Bobbie Harder's blog.

StormWorm botnet lashes out at security researchers - Boing Boing
The Storm Worm botnet (thought to be the largest network of compromised machines in the world) has begun to figure out which security researchers are trying to disrupt its command-and-control systems and knock them offline with DDoS attacks against them, shutting down their Internet access for days, says Josh Korman, host-protection architect for IBM/ISS, who led a session on network threats. “As you try to investigate [Storm], it knows, and it punishes,” he says. “It fights back.” As a result, researchers who have managed to glean facts about the worm are reluctant to publish their findings. “They’re afraid. I’ve never seen this before,” Korman says. As researchers test their versions of Storm by connecting to Storm command-and-control servers, the servers seem to recognize these attempts as threatening. Then either the worm itself or the people behind it seem to knock them off the Internet by flooding them with traffic from Storm’s botnet, Korman says.

[H] Enthusiast - NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
The new GeForce 8800 GT gives the GeForce 8800 GTS and 2900 XT a run for the money.

LucasArts to wield Wii Light Sabre in UK next week | Reg Hardware
British fans of Nintendo Wii and Star Wars will get a first glimpse of the Wii Remote as a Light Sabre at a gaming festival being held later this month.

Hellgate: London Demo Now Available on FileFront
Hellgate drops players into a London where the streets teem with demonic enemies, and the only refuge are underground sanctuaries held by the Templar. It also incorporates a free-to-play, pay for more content subscription model that seems to be becoming more prevalent every day.

Digg - Gears Of War PC Goes Gold
Microsoft has announced that the PC version of Gears of War has gone gold. The sci-fi third person action game from developer Epic Games will ship to stores on Nov. 6.

Crysis Demo Now Available For Download | BizzNtech
Fileshack.com is hosting a 1.77GB demo of Crysis. If you are going to download this demo then you will also have to update your nVida drivers to v169.01. This driver is recommended by nVidia for Crysis single player game demo.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Family-friendly Xbox goes on sale
Microsoft has released a new Xbox 360 console - dubbed The Arcade - which is aimed squarely at the family market.

BBC NEWS | Business | Wii helps Nintendo double profits
The success of the Wii has helped Nintendo to double its profit in the six months to the end of September. Demand for the console has outstripped that for Sony's Playstation 3 and Microsoft's XBox 360 - selling about 7.3 million units.

devotii :: News :: Unreal Tournament 3 Demo Released!
Epic Games' mega shooter, in the making for nearly 3 years has finally arrived - the Unreal Tournament 3 demo!

ComNetSlash
The developer behind Assassin’s Creed has revealed 2 problems - 1) The memory inside the Playstation 3 is causing problems and 2) The Xbox 360 version of the game is struggling to fit on a 360 DVD!

Auran Games:
http://www.auran.com/auran/default.htm
http://www.unleashthefury.com/

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