Hey folks. Cold weather, snow, ice, freezing rain…now this. A couple of days ago, Yahoo discovered there had been a concerted effort to hack it through passwords obtained from a third party database… Just to let you all know. I’ve changed mine, and hope you’re changing yours before your account becomes unavailable and all your friends end up with malware because they opened a disguised link/file. Yahoo said it reset the passwords of the affected accounts. Just in case,...
There will be hundreds and possibly as many as 1,400, eventually. However, relax…it won’t happen all at once. It’ll be a slow rollout because no one wishes to destabilize the internet, right? ICANN believes this will improve things…I’m not convinced. I think there’ll be a lot of confusion without a whole lot of improvement. We’re talking about gTLDs (generic top level domains) like .com, .net, .org and .edu. There will be .google, .ford, .apple, .bike, .wed and .book to be follo...
Kinect, as you know senses motion and translates it into machine action in playing games. It has more uses. It has been used successfully to help patients recover from Facial Nerve paralysis in the context of stroke . Kinect senses the differences in motion on the left and right sides of the face while doing routine exercises, and this information is given to the patient on the monitor screen. This feedback (written and oral) is then given to the patient and is used to guide him...
Today, Gmail had a worldwide outage. The reason for it hasn’t been given, but after scrambling to get their huge servers back online, one hotmail account started getting thousands of emails. David S. Peck is the poor shnook this happened to. When you search Google for gmail, and you click on a link, you open an email with the address dsp559@hotmail.com . The emails aren’t from a single link, and have no spam attached…so he can’t even filter them out. Needless to say, ...
In light of the brouhaha over malware author acquisition of extensions for Chrome, a recent post by Martin Brinkmann at Ghacks might prove useful. For FF it’s easy, and the extension, etc. are described in the article linked above. For Chrome…not so easy. Chrome updates extensions automatically. So, you have to repeat the process in the article after each update. That’s a true PITA. There is a second option: Add on Update Checker . “Show a notif...
Nice article with a ‘how to’ regarding the Windows Cleanup Tool for W7.x and 8.x. The Windows Update Cleanup feature is designed to help you to regain valuable hard disk space by removing bits and pieces of old Windows updates that are no longer needed. http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/regain-hard-disk-space-by-using-windows-update-cleanup-in-windows-7-and-8x/#. Hope it helps.
A very good ‘how to’ article at The Windows Club . Source: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/desktop-screenshot-on-windows-8-1
Skynet? Nope. Even worse: Spamnet: You’re doomed to live and suffer. Now we’re getting spammed by our appliances. If you remember, back in 2011 I wrote about possible infection via networked devices like printers which get driver updates via the internet. Now, there has been a report (Proofpoint) of 750,000 spam emails being sent from a fridge and 100,000 compromised devices, including a smart t.v. So, Philly’s question (I believe in another article) was qu...
This is a follow up from a prior article about net neutrality ( here ). Undoubtedly, you’ve heard of the recent 9th Circuit decision essentially striking down net neutrality which ruled that the FCC’s rules regarding anti-discrimination and anti-blocking. Those rules were: “The second rule prohibits broadband operators from blocking lawful content on their networks. These rules differ in strictness depending on whether the provider is a fixed-broadband provider or a...
Well, Google wants to know more and more and push their ads so their latest is (while possibly useful for some) a tad over the top for me. I’m referring to the possibility (if you are on Google Plus) for anyone who has you in his circles to email you even without knowing your email address. To me this just opens too many possible nasty doors. Granted, if you don’t wish to answer, the sender will never know your gmail address. That won’t stop the spam, though (nor possible phish...
The other shoe has fallen, and it turns out Target’s assurances were pretty worthless. The data thieves also swept up names, addresses and phone numbers in addition to the credit and debit card and PIN data. That (besides being data for sale), also adds info for identity thieves looking to impersonate the theft victims. Face it…with name, telephone number PIN, card number and address…this just became a lot easier. Oh yes…and that 40,000,000? There&rs...
This tip comes via Wizard1956. Though not a ‘shopper’ himself, the good Wiz pm’d me with this. So…I face booked it and sent it to a few of the folks who taught me Ps. It can save HOURS of work…or having to recreate something from scratch. Get it HERE . Thanks, Wiz! You go to the BdJ link, and then "like" it and the BdJ page on face book and they send you a download link OR you fill out a questionnaire.
Lesa Snider is giving a free, three day course on Adobe Lightroom 5. Adobe is also selling Lightroom at a discount (not as part of its Creative Cloud). From Now until Jan. 11, you can get a perpetual license to Lightroom for $119 (savings of $30 US). You can get more details here . Lesa’s 3 day course will be running on creativeLive from January 6th 9am-4pm Pacific time (or 12 noon-7pm Eastern time . It’s free while live and there will be r...
Well…happy new year. “The more things change…” as the saying goes. Thanks to an insecure API, these two have been exploited revealing 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers. The ripples will be significant. For instance, someone can view and change your unread messages as well as those sent, and replace your images. Imagine the mischief, and serious problems that can cause. What’s worse? The discoverers supposedly offered to help fix the proble...
Interesting article at Neowin . Looks like XP usage is dropping quickly: Down 3.38% in a month. I didn’t see sample size stats, though. By far, the highest usage for XP is in China, with a significant persentage of those pirated. Recently, China asked MS to extend XP support. That deserves a “Chutzy Award”. from Neowin Source: http://www.neowin.net/news/wind...