I felt really good when I read gHacks about this topic, since it’s something I’ve been doing for years. There are two basic situations: The first: You’ve decided that for the type of purchase you’re making, it’s better to have a direct connection to the brick and mortar merchant, and the second: You’ve decided that the discount or local availability dictate you shop online. For the second, this article doesn’t apply. For the first, there are several ways to pay for things. ...
I like that Sci Fi ‘inventions’ become real. Exoskeletons (a normal attribute for insects and crustaceans) are now finding their way into mankind’s world. They exist…for medical and industrial as well as military uses: The first is the ‘Walker’ for paralyzed people which is undergoing medical trials prior to FDA approval. The second is ‘HULC’ ( http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/press-releases/2011/june/LockheedMartinsHULCRoboti.html ) hel...
First of all, it’s in Beta, but supposedly runs just fine but only for Chrome, and Chrome based browsers. The review of it is here: http://www.ghacks.net/2014/09/12/google-software-removal-tool-for-windows-released/?_m=3n%2e0038%2e1365%2ehj0ao01hy5%2e1ew6 I agree with Martin Brinkmann that this should only be used as a last resort, if only because Google doesn’t list exactly which programs it scans for and removes. It does it for those it considers “suspicious”. ...
Everybody signs up for free stuff or services, goodies, whatever. It’s only human. Fort me, it’s graphics, fonts, photography sites, digital art sites. What can I say? Things pile up really quickly, and your inbox looks like World War Z around the walls of Jerusalem. So, it’s time to get rid of stuff you no longer need. Like “accounts”. MakeUseOf had a good article ( http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/make-4-changes-delete-online-account/ ) which gives four steps b...
Microsoft calls this build Windows Technical Preview and the build number is 9834 (Windows 8.1 is 9600), not Windows 9. So maybe it won’t be called Windows 9 after all? There’s a video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--wgAsHWNRE#t=16 There’s also a review of the new features revealed in the video and a fair critique here: http://www.ghacks.net/2014/09/12/what-the-leaked-windows-9-screenshots-reveal-about-the-operating-system/?_m=3n%2e0038%2e1364...
Just saw this…so, passing it on. “According to the Daily Dot, nearly 5 million usernames and passwords to Gmail accounts have been leaked on a Russian Bitcoin forum. Here's what you should know. The list has since been taken down, and there's no evidence that Gmail itself was hacked—just that these passwords have been leaked. Most sources are saying that lots of the information is quite old, so chances are they were leaked long ago—though others ...
A cool concept…by making it windowless, there will be a great savings of materials producing a lighter and stronger airframe. So, no one wants to be shut in that way, without a way to look out and see the world, right? Well this baby will have cameras outside with 360 0 pano view and the cabin walls will be screens…with possibilities for video conferencing, etc. Spike Aerospace has won design prizes with this revolutionary plane design. Pretty cool! ...
Meetup, Mozilla, Reddit, Etsy and Kickstarter and other big website owning net neutrality backers will be displaying the dreaded large spinning wheel (‘Please wait – site loading’) this Wednesday, five days before the FCC second round deadline for public comments. This will be to show folks how their net will look if the FCC doesn’t pass strong net neutrality regulations. The point being without those regulations, the web will develop ‘fast’ (higher fee) lanes and ‘slow’ pe...
“The best way to infect thousands of computers is to set up a malicious website. Better still, hack a popular website and insert malicious code. That way, thousands of website visitors will be affected when they visit the website. Badware is the name given to the malware present on websites – in the site code or in the malicious advertisements or malvertisements being displayed on the website.” – TWC It basically ignores your choice as to how your compu...
“This was one of the largest and oldest criminal hacker operations…using over 800 shell companies to steal information from government servers, banks, and large corporations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland…for over a decade (since 2002).”- TimesofIsrael CyberIntel and a UK partner were asked to investigate a security breach which a German company could not identify, because the Trojan used had not been identified by any antivirus software. The Trojan was unique i...
Lifehacker puts out good stuff quite often. Folks buy and sell their devices often enough that it’s worth noting three excellent articles about this topic. If you have additional suggestions, please add them! The first is…well the titled source: http://lifehacker.com/the-apps-you-need-to-deauthenticate-before-selling-your-1629748753 The second is your phone: http://lifehacker.com/5808280/what-should-i-do-with-my-phone-before-i-sell-it The third and arguab...
I wrote about CryptoLocker and the fix for it ( here , here and here ), and CryptoDefender . Well, I’m here to really make your (Labor) day. After CryptoDefender came Cryptowall for Mac (so you Apple guys wouldn’t feel left out of the joy), and CryptoWall (the baddy on about 600K computers. Oh…and now “TorrentLocker”. TorrentLocker is a truly deadly piece of malware infecting folks using BitTorrent. While there are ways of getting rid of the others, this one combines Cr...
I’d hazard a guess and say most everyday memories aren’t really linked to strong emotions…it’s hard to get really excited about the location of a pen or some such. Other memories are not quite so benign. I’m referring to those with strong emotion linked to them. Those can be good or destructive. Well, at MIT, neuroscientists have found (in mice) the neuronal circuit that is critical to linking memory with emotion. Furthermore, the researchers found that they could reverse the em...
The LS-15 can overheat and cause fires. So HP has issued a voluntary worldwide recall on 6 million of these power cords used on HP and Compaq computers (you can see the number on the female end of the cord) from 9/2010 – 6/2012. Not all HP and Compaq notebook and mini notebook PCs were sold with the LS-15. “There were 29 reports of cords overheating, melting and charring causing 2 claims of minor burns and 13 claims of minor property damage.” – c|net HP’s anno...
We all know that Microsoft no longer supports the XP OS (except for the IRS). So, patches for vulnerabilities aren’t coming and those with the OS are under rather severe risk of spyware, malware and other OS exploits when running the OS. It’s also true that running virtualizing software is the best protection of a computer on the net, and off it (when checking out new software). FastStone has created VirtualXP (1.0): “to convert XP system to a Microsoft virtual disk, w...