Clipmarks | kelvin273's 'computers' clips

Cubans allowed to buy products they can't afford

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:11:11 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: This is interesting. On the one hand, the new access to personal computers creates a new, de-facto freedom of the press (even without internet access to blog or post on forums, all you need is a printer to distribute anti-government literature). On the other hand, only the well-off can afford this stuff, and the well-off are less likely to agitate against the system, particularly if the system gives them cell phones and computers.

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

In the past week, President Raúl Castro has legalized cell phone use for ordinary Cubans; granted Cubans access to previously off-limits tourist hotels; and legalized the sale within Cuba of microwaves, DVD players and personal computers. Cubans are welcoming the change, even if the costs are out of their reach.

And although computers hadn't yet been seen on the shelves Wednesday, Yamile Batista, the commercial director of La Puntilla department store, said they were among various products that would appear this week.

"We're talking about complete computer systems, 21-inch televisions, DVD players, home theater systems," she said.

Most Cubans can't afford to rent cell phones, stay in hotels or buy any of the new products available to them. The average monthly salary is just under $20.

Those in the stores this week were primarily those with access to hard currency, either from relatives abroad or through jobs in the tourist industry.

Tags: cuba, technology

Prank: Desktop Computers in Starbucks

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:38:48 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: Apparently, this is from the people who brought you the Grand Central Station stunt.

Clip Source: www.geekologie.com

Improv Everywhere, an improv troupe that is always up to some sort of ridiculous shenanigans, is at it again. This time a group of them bring full-sized desktop computers (complete with CRTs) into Starbucks to take advantage of the free Wi-Fi. Oh the hilarity. You should see the looks on the faces of bystanders.

[Video]

Tags: starbucks, computers, wi-fi, prank

Free Books - Free Minds

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 22:26:05 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: www.wowio.com

Cheating on computerized tests

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 05:31:41 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: Ah, the new frontiers opened by technology.

Clip Source: www.daytondailynews.com

DAYTON — At least one University of Dayton law school student found a way to copy material from his computer files into an electronic final exam last spring, circumventing the university's intent to prevent such copying during an open notes test, according to a Nov. 1 letter from the law school to students.

John T. Valente, 42, filed a civil lawsuit Nov. 14 in Montgomery County Common Pleas court against the university's law school claiming the school was negligent in failing to prevent the copying capability during the spring final exam in a criminal procedure class.

To prevent a test-taker from copying the information they have access to into their exams, the software includes an option of disabling its proprietary clipboard and any copying, cutting and pasting.

But a student found a way around the disabled cut-and-paste using a Windows function still accessible during the unsecured exam called "drag-and-drop" to achieve the same result.

Tags: education, computers

IE Can Be Used to Attack Firefox

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 06:22:00 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: Yet another reason to use Internet Explorer as little as possible.

Clip Source: www.mozillazine.org

Firefox_User sent us a link to a CNET News.com article about a security threat to Windows users with both Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer installed. The issue can allow an attacker to remotely trick Firefox into executing potentially malicious code. However, a user has to be running Internet Explorer to actually get exploited.

When installed on Windows, Firefox registers a URL protocol handler to handle firefoxurl:// URLs (this works much like a http:// or ftp:// URL protocol handler). If an IE user visits a webpage that tries to call a firefoxurl:// URL (for example, using an iframe), IE will launch Firefox with no further prompting, passing it the URL. Neither IE nor Firefox escape or sanitise the URL, which allows an attacker to inject additional parameters into the command line used to invoke Firefox.

There's some debate as to where the blame lies — is it IE for passing untrusted data to another application or Firefox for not validating input properly?

Tags: browsers, firefox, internet explorer, security, computers

Dedicated RSS Feed Search Engine

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:25:16 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad
clipper's remarks: 40,000,000 RSS/Atom feeds and feed items fully searchable

Clip Source: www.rssmicro.com

Dedicated RSS Feed Search Engine

40,000,000 RSS/Atom feeds and feed items fully searchable

All \| Feed Items \| Feeds

Sort by: Rank Date	Preferences

RSS Feed Directory
(based on Open Directory Project)

Arts
Movies, Music, Television,...

Business
Energy, Finance, Jobs,...

Computers
Hardware, Internet, Software,...

Games
Board, Roleplaying, Video,...

Health
Alternative, Fitness, Medicine,...

Home
Consumers, Homeowners, Family,...

Kids and Teens
Computers, Entertainment, School,...

News
Media, Newspapers, Current Events,...

Recreation
Food, Outdoors, Travel,...

Reference
Education, Libraries, Maps,...

Regional
Asia, Europe, North America,...

Science
Biology, Psychology, Physics,...

Shopping
Autos, Clothing, Gifts,...

Society
Issues, People, Religion,...

Sports
Basketball, Football, Soccer,...

World
Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, Nederlands, Polska, Svenska, ...

Tags: rss, search, search engine

Free Software Programs for Writers

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:38:06 GMT

clipped by: kwonsu

Clip Source: www.teresciaharvey.com

NoteTab Light — Free Version — I built this web site with this program (every single incarnation of this site, including the current version, stylesheets and all).
Go to the NoteTab website.
Sonar — Free (donations accepted) — Created by the creator of yWriter, this handy program tracks submissions better than a spreadsheet.
Go to the Sonar website.
EverNote — Freeware — EverNote is a fantastic notekeeping program that makes keeping up with notes and research for multiple projects an absolute breeze. Highly recommended for all writers. More of my comments on Evernote.
Go to the EverNote website.
WordWeb — Free Version — WordWeb is a thesaurus and dictionary that can integrate with other programs or run as a standalone program.
Go to the WordWeb website.
RoughDraft — Freeware — RoughDraft is an easy to use word processing program created specifically for writers with features that meet a writer's unique needs.
Go to the RoughDraft website.
Similar programs: WriteWay, yWriter
TreePad Lite — Freeware — Great for notes, detailed lists, character and scene sketches, or just anything at all. I've created a story note organizer for TreePad. It's a simple document in the TreePad format that can be used as a template to help you organize all those documents that invariably accumulate as you work on your most recent novel(s). It also lets you keep track of submissions and rejections. Download my template story_note_organizer.hjt (right click and choose "save target as" or "save link as").
Go to the TreePad website.

AbiWord — Free — Word processing program.
Go to the AbiWord website.

Celtx — Free — Scriptwriting program
Go to the Celtx website.

Dramatica Pro — Demo
Download the demo from The Writers Store.

Final Draft Screenwriting Software
Go to the Final Draft Screenwriting Software website.

Indelible Ink (Scriptwright & Bookwright) — Demos
Go to the Indelible Ink website.

Innovation Toolbox
Go to the Innovation Toolbox website.

Tags: freeware, software, computers, writing, writers

Analysis of Windows Vista content protection

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 05:48:47 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: So they're going to make your computer run slower in order to keep you from making backup copies of music and movies. I think I'm going to get a new computer while XP is still out.

Clip Source: badvista.fsf.org

In a controversial technical analysis Peter Gutmann goes into fantastic detail about the recently released Vista operating system and its content protection scheme. One thing became clear to me after reading this analysis. Vista is being marketed to content producers, not consumers. If Windows XP was Microsoft’s attempt to embed a browser into the operating system then Vista is the attempt to embed DRM. Digital Rights Management technology has been applied to literally every ring of the OS architecture.

Vista's target market is content producers and the underlying philosophy of the user experience will be far different then what many consumers expect it will be. Microsoft has attempted to plug the infamous “analog hole” as much as is possible by forcing all data through encryption algorithms. For those unaware of the “costs” of encryption it is sufficiently high. Pushing HD audio and video content through encryption/decryption routines is a tremendous strain on any system currently available and in the near future. Even with the application of Moore's Law a conservative estimate could place affordable and usable systems within this new content system 5 years away. It will be interesting to see how these restrictions will be spun by the large marketing and PR teams since none of these innovations will benefit consumers in any way. The job that has been handed to these PR and marketing teams is to dress up a product designed with every restriction a producer has asked for and make a consumer want to buy it. One of the most quotable lines from the Gutmann analysis sums this up perfectly as, “breaking the legs of Olympic athletes and then rating them based on how fast they can hobble on crutches.”

Tags: technology, computers, microsoft, windows, vista, drm

Firefox still more secure than IE

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 03:27:13 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: Though the author seems to go out of his way to praise Microsoft and make Firefox look bad, he was forced to admit that Mozilla patches vulnerabilities faster than Microsoft. Then if you stop looking at irrelevant stats like how many vulnerabilities are discovered in a given length of time and start looking at how many vulnerabilites remain unpatched now and how severe they are, FF comes out on top by a long shot (4 vs. 18, Less Critical vs. Moderately Critical according to Secunia.com). And that's a pretty good showing by Microsoft, who usually can be counted on to leave an Extremely Critical flaw unpatched for months at a time.

Clip Source: www.pcmag.com

Browser Bashing

11.15.06

By Robert Lemos

Fraudsters are regularly using previously unknown flaws, dubbed "zero-day" flaws, to attack Web surfers' computers through Internet Explorer. In September, Microsoft released an emergency update to patch what was a previously unknown flaw in the way the browser handled on-the-fly graphics written in the Vector Markup Language. In the first half of 2006, the software giant patched 38 flaws affecting Internet Explorer, according to security firm Symantec. This number is actually down from the number of flaws the company found in the first half of 2004 (45).

The open-source Firefox browser didn't fare any better. Though it hasn't suffered the malicious designs of attackers as had Internet Explorer, Symantec researchers did find more than 47 flaws in it during the first half of 2006, a sharp increase from the 7 flaws found in the first half of 2003. The bright spot for Firefox users is that Firefox developers managed to patch security flaws in the software within two days after the vulnerability emerged. Microsoft took an average of nine days.

Tags: internet, browsers, firefox, internet explorer, security

PC Mag columnist disses Time's person of the year

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 02:04:44 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: Whether you agree with Dvorak's views, it's funny. Especially the part about MySpace. In the full article, he rants about every single picture in the flash slideshow.

Clip Source: www.pcmag.com

Time Magazine Insults Nation

12.18.06

The Person of the Year cop-out.

Total posts: 19

By John C. Dvorak

Time magazine has once again failed to find any one person that it can name "Person of the Year." So it decides to cop out and name everyone the person of the year. From the results, you can tell that the editors feel a general disdain for what they must increasingly believe to be a public of dummies.

When Time chose YOU as the Person of the Year, the editors developed an alibi for the decision. They said it was because of all the cool things happening on the Net. Cool things such as, uh, YouTube and MySpace? Cripes!

What I found telling about this cop-out selection was the Time Web site itself linked here. At the top of the article they show a series of photos which have nothing to do with anything technological, but instead depict a series of apparent (in the mind's eye of Time editors) stereotypes of people who represent this universal "YOU!"

So there is a subtext to the person of the year, and it's not about computers or YouTube or user-generated content. The subtext is that YOU—the Person of the Year—are apparently an idiot.

It makes sense. In fact, that's why the editors could not come up with a real person of the year. You idiots wouldn't understand why he/she was chosen and probably would have never heard of the person anyway. So let's give the award to YOU—the idiots. From my editor's eye I see this subtext all over this article, and these pictures just prove it.

In disgust, they threw up their arms and named YOU the Person of the Year to see if you would notice that it was actually an insult. I noticed. And I'd like an apology.

Tags: internet, time, person of the year

FSF launches anti-Vista campaign

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 01:46:06 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: It's pretty much conventional wisdom that no Microsoft operating system is as good as it claims to be, but this may be the earliest campaign against an OS ever.

Clip Source: badvista.fsf.org

BadVista.org: FSF launches campaign against Microsoft Vista

by John Sullivan — posted at 2006-12-15 15:51 last modified 2006-12-15 15:51

Boston, MA—December 15, 2006—The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today launched BadVista.org, a campaign with a twofold mission of exposing the harms inflicted on computer users by the new Microsoft Windows Vista and promoting free software alternatives that respect users' security and privacy rights.

“Vista is an upsell masquerading as an upgrade. It is an overall regression when you look at the most important aspect of owning and using a computer: your control over what it does. Obviously MS Windows is already proprietary and very restrictive, and well worth rejecting. But the new 'features' in Vista are a Trojan Horse to smuggle in even more restrictions. We'll be focusing attention on detailing how they work, how to resist them, and why people should care”, said FSF program administrator John Sullivan.

The campaign will organize supporters into effective and unusual actions drawing attention to this daylight theft of computer users' rights, aggregate news stories cutting through the Vista marketing propaganda, and provide a user-friendly gateway to the adoption of free software operating systems like gNewSense (http://www.gnewsense.org).

Among other harms, BadVista.org will focus on the danger posed by Treacherous Computing in Vista. Commonly called Trusted Computing in the industry, it is an attempt to turn computers from machines controlled by their user into machines that monitor their user and refuse to operate in ways that manufacturers don't authorize.

Tags: technology, os, windows, vista

Wikipedia gives away its wiki software

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:51:58 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273

Clip Source: www.pcmag.com

Wikipedia Founder To Give Away Site Tools, Services

12.11.06

By Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Free software is about to get freer.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said on Monday his for-profit company, Wikia Inc., is ready to give away—for free—all the software, computing, storage and network access that Web site builders need to create community collaboration sites.

Wikia, a commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia, will go even further to provide customers—bloggers or other operators who meet its criteria for popular Web sites—100 percent of any advertising revenue from the sites they build.

"It is open-source software and open content," Wales said in a phone interview. "We will be providing the computer hosting for free, and the publisher can keep the advertising revenue."

That could prove disruptive to business models of Web sites that provide free services to customers but require a cut of any resulting revenue in return.

Wikia gives away the tools and the revenue to its users. It requires only that sites built with the company's resources link to Wikia.com, which makes money through advertising.

Wales is betting the plunging cost of computers and networks can help Wikia support the free services offer. "It is becoming more and more practical and feasible to do," he said.

Tags: internet, technology, wikipedia