MyGeeksToGo News: IE9 – The Beauty of the Web

 

On September 15 2010, Microsoft announced a public beta version of their web browser Internet Explorer (IE). Microsoft claims that this new version, IE9, is going to be a more secure, stable and faster browsing experience. Being a little skeptical toward Internet Explorer, I wanted to see this for myself, so I set out to get my copy of IE9 over at The Beauty of the Web.

Quoting The Beauty of the Web; “As amazing as the web is, its potential is immeasurably greater. Internet Explorer 9 was designed to let that potential shine through. Click below to see how developers and designers are creating a more beautiful web using HTML5 and advancements in Internet Explorer 9.”

“As amazing as the web is, its potential is immeasurably greater. Internet Explorer 9 was designed to let that potential shine through. Click below to see how developers and designers are creating a more beautiful web using HTML5 and advancements in Internet Explorer 9.”

I myself am a big fan of Google Chrome. I love the speed it offers and the minimalistic UI it offers, therefore I won’t only be comparing IE9 to IE8, but I will also write about my experience in the difference between the two different browsers. Now I am just hoping that Internet Explorer can live up to the expectations I have as a frequent web user.

Read the rest of this entry »

 

del.icio.us Tags: IE9,Microsoft,Internet Explorer,Geeks To Go,Windows 7

TechCrunch: Facebook’s ‘Download Your Information’ Feature Has A Memory Lapse

 

Earlier this month, Facebook announced the launch of a new feature called “Download Your Information”. The feature is fairly self-explanatory: hit a button, and Facebook will compile an archive of all the data you’ve ever uploaded to the site — photos, videos, messages, and more — which you can download in a handy Zip file for archival purposes. Given how much content people are storing on Facebook these days this is great news, but it’s got one catch: your archive will be missing anything that appeared on your Facebook Wall prior to mid-2006.

The Wall has long been one of Facebook’s most popular features, allowing friends to leave each other brief notes and links in a semi-public area, and in the days before News Feed it was the main way people interacted with each other on the site. I’d looked forward to reliving (or at least, skimming) the birthday greetings, lewd jokes, and awkward invites left on my profile in days of yore, so I was a bit miffed when my stroll down memory lane was cut short.

But most people on Facebook won’t care. While the site currently has over 500 million users, in summer 2006 the total was more like 10 million, so this only affects, at most, around 2% of the current userbase. And the Wall is the only feature that’s affected — your messages and photos are all intact regardless of when they were posted.

So why is Facebook cutting off Wall content posted before summer 2006? The feature is relatively ancient by Facebook standards, launching back in September 2004 when the site was still restricted to college students. It comes as little surprise that the Wall has been re-architected multiple times through the years, and it apparently isn’t trivial for the site to access content posted prior to summer 2006 (you’ll notice that even if you manually scroll down your Wall instead of relying on the ‘Download Your Information’ archive, it will still cut off around this time).

A Facebook spokesperson says that the company will “continue to evaluate this as we get more usage and feedback”, which makes me think that if enough people complain they could do the legwork to offer your entire Wall. Given that few people seem to have noticed the omission so far though, I’m doubting that’s going to happen.

My comment: I’m isn’t know at all about the function, is it relatively? My only hope is that Facebook wil come up with a theme that user’s can choose what they want their facebook look likes. :)

Four new themes

Posted by Jake Knapp, UI Designer and Manu Cornet, Software Engineer

Manu: Hey Jake, you still using that same old theme?
Jake: Well, yeah. I mean, I like it -- but I don't know... I guess it just doesn't feel as new as it used to.
Manu: I hear ya. Well, good news! Today four new themes are out there for everybody. Just go to the Themes tab under Settings...and ta da!
Jake: (click, click) There we go!
Manu: Should we tell people about why we created these four themes?
Jake: We should.
Manu: Assuming they're still reading.
Jake: Right. Okay, well, Gmail themes have been out since November, and I know we were ready for some new ones.
Manu: And we heard some of you asking for new ones too. So we thought about what we wanted to stare at all day long, since we work on Gmail.
Jake: I've been living in Zurich for the last year, and I missed Washington State, where I grew up. The Orcas Island theme definitely takes away a little bit of that homesickness with a new image each day of the week.


Manu: Homesickness eh? What about timesickness?
Jake: There's such a thing?
Manu: Totally. Sometimes I find myself timesick.
Jake: For when?
Manu: For a simpler time. For a time when processors weren't too fast. When graphics weren't too realistic.
Jake: Sounds like a real bummer. Too bad there's no cure for timesickness.
Manu: That's where you're dead wrong, my friend. Take a look at High Score. It's like being in a time machine isn't it?


Jake: (click, click) Aren't these colors a little bright?
Manu: Aren't you supposed to be a designer?
Jake: We'll have to agree to disagree, my friend. This one just isn't for me. I need something soothing. Something like laying face down in the grass.
Manu: I suppose you're talking about Turf now. What's the story behind that one?


Jake: Well, who doesn't like the color green?
Manu: And it doesn't change every day, so it was easier for us to make.
Jake: Are you suggesting we're lazy?
Manu: Prove that we're not.
Jake: We just made four new themes. How about that?
Manu: It took us ten months. And the fourth theme (Random) merely cycles through all the others.
Jake: Well, enjoy these themes for now. And, of course, let us know what you think. Maybe we'll have some more for you in the next ten months ;)

View Original Article

Nokia outs the XpressMusic X6 and X3

I like the XpressMusic line. I really do. It is fun to watch Nokia try something different and these two new models are no exception. The X6 has 32MB storage and Comes With Music unlimited downloads. It will cost about $650.



The X3 looks like a cousin to the Motorola RAZR and has a 3.2-megapixel camera, FM radio, and takes MicroSD cards. It will be $160.

No word on US availability but don’t hold your breath.

via Giz

View Original Article

Hackers target Xbox Live players

Halo 3 players are a popular target for the Xbox attack

**BBC News**

Xbox Live is being targeted by malicious hackers selling services that kick players off the network.

The booting services are proving popular with players who want a way to get revenge on those who beat them in an Xbox Live game.

The attackers are employing data flooding tools that have been used against websites for many years.

Microsoft is "investigating" the use of the tools and said those caught using them would be banned from Xbox Live.

"There's been a definite increase in the amount of people talking about and distributing these things over the last three to four weeks," said Chris Boyd, director of malware research at Facetime Communications.

Attack tool

"The smart thing about these Xbox tools is that they do not attack the Xbox Live network itself," he said.

He said the tools work by exploiting the way that the Xbox Live network is set up. Game consoles connecting to the Xbox network send data via the net, and for that it needs an IP address.

Even better, said Mr Boyd, games played via Xbox Live are not hosted on private servers.

The tools mean anyone with a few dollars can boot rivals off Xbox Live

"Instead," he said, "a lot of games on Xbox Live are hosted by players."

If hackers can discover the IP address of whoever is hosting a game they can employ many of the attacks that have been used for years against websites, said Mr Boyd.

One of the most popular for the Xbox Live specialists is the Denial of Service attack which floods an IP address with vast amounts of data.

The flood of data is generated by a group of hijacked home computers, a botnet, that have fallen under the control of a malicious hacking group.

When turned against a website this flood of traffic can overwhelm it or make it unresponsive to legitimate visitors.

When turned against an Xbox owner, it can mean they cannot connect to the Live network and effectively throws them out of the game.

"They get your IP address, put it in the booter tool and they attempt to flood the port that uses Xbox traffic," said Mr Boyd. "Flooding that port prevents any traffic getting out."

Skill set

The hard part, he said, was discovering a particular gamer's IP address but many malicious hackers had honed the skills needed to find them.

Some interconnect their PC and Xbox and use packet sniffing software to hunt through the traffic flowing in and out of the console for IP addresses.

The hackers target the way Xbox consoles connect to the net

Others simply use con tricks to get the target to reveal their net address.

The technical knowledge needed to hunt down IP addresses was quite high, said Mr Boyd, but many of those who had the skills were selling their expertise to those keen to hit back at their rivals on the Xbox Live network.

For $20 (£13) some Xbox Live hackers will remotely access a customer's PC and set up the whole system so it can be run any time they need it.

Some offer low rates to add compromised machines to a botnet and increase the amount of data flooding a particular IP address.

Defending against the attack could be tricky, said Mr Boyd: "There's no real easy solution to this one."

Although IP addresses regularly change, people could find it takes hours or days for their ISP to move them on to a new one.

In response to the rise in attacks, Microsoft said: "We are investigating reports involving the use of malicious software tools that an attacker could use to try and disrupt an Xbox LIVE player's internet connection."

It added: "This problem is not related to the Xbox Live service, but to the player's internet connection. The attacker could also attempt [to] disrupt other internet activities, such as streaming video or web browsing, using the same tools.

In its statement Microsoft warned: "This malicious activity violates the Xbox Live Terms of Use, and will result in a ban from Xbox Live and other appropriate action.

It urged anyone falling victim to such an attack to contact their ISP to report it and get help fixing it.

In January 2009 Microsoft announced that Xbox Live had more than 17m members.

Xoopit Marries Facebook Status Updates With Gmail

Xoopit, a social networking email enhancement that allows users to locate files, images and videos in their inbox, has launched a new feature that lets Gmail users immediately see and set Facebook status messages and view profile photos of their Facebook friends while reading emails off a Gmail account.

Users can also quickly see other information such as birthdays and mobile phone numbers. After downloading the feature, a user can easily update their own status directly from a Gmail account using Facebook Connect. Xoopit’s new feature is pretty neat and gives users the ability to bounce between Facebook and Gmail accounts seamlessly. And Facebook’s status message feature is one that most users check most frequently, so its particularly useful to the average Facebook user.

The marriage of social networking and email is not a new concept. Yahoo and Google are both pretty open to incorporating social networking into their email applications, with Yahoo even potentially creating a social network around its email product (Yahoo mail has around 254 million users worldwide, Gmail has around 80 million users).

It doesn’t appear that the Xoopit-Facebook feature is available to Yahoo Mail users but the Yahoo and Xoopit may not be far away from developing a Gmail-like relationship with Yahoo, as we wrote about late last year.

The plug-in was a bit buggy when I downloaded it but I think its a nifty tool as a whole. It certainly saves me the time in switching back to Facebook to check status updates or update my own status. Now if only we could stream the news feed feature into Gmail.

Here’s another screenshot of the new feature:

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

View Original Article

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Microsoft: Bounty on Conficker worm creator

Microsoft has announced today that it is offering a reward of $250,000 to anyone who can provide information that can help arrest the creator of the Conficker worm. They stated that this worm is a criminal attack and that citizens from any country can receive the bounty.

Conficker, also known as Downandup, has infected millions of computers around the world since last year. It is difficult to stop because spreads through USB thumb drives or the internet and takes advantage of Windows machines that are missing newer security patches. Once it infects a computer, it can halt automatic updates and security scans, block access to security-related websites and even lock users out of their accounts.

Microsoft has experience with fighting large virus outbreaks like this. Back in 2004, they offered $250,000 for information about the Sasser worm. They later paid out the reward in 2005. They said that this time they are teaming up with security companies, and internet companies like AOL to stop the outbreak. Better late than never, I guess.

View Original Article

Blogged with the Flock Browser