No… not the future prediction. The hand’s motions controlling the computer. It’s here. It’s on pre-order. It’s so cool. So what is “The Leap”? According to its developer: “The Leap is a small iPod sized USB peripheral that creates a 3D interaction space of 8 cubic feet to precisely interact with and control software on your laptop or desktop computer.” You can read more about it here: http://live.leapmotion.com/a...
Kaspersky has reported discovering a really super piece of spyware after being requested to investigate suspected malware causing information loss at the Iranian oil refinery/depot. They believe it’s been around since August 2010. Photocredit: Kaspersky Labs The countries affected appear to be Israel, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. There are three classes of malware/spyware producers: Hacktivists, cybercriminals and nation states. The ...
Anyone who’s nuts about utilities and their importance in rescues of your computer or, more often your family’s and friends’ has to have this. First of all, it’s portable and can be put on a zip drive or burned to disk, as well as put on the primary disk. The Nirsoft Launcher is a package of more than 100 freeware NirSoft utilities in a logical and organized (and compact) format: Needless to say, I grabbed it, and I strongly recommend you do so as we...
To continue with browsers and again non-competitively, I’d like to mention Lunascape. Lots of browsers do interesting things, like Opera’s managing email and ‘Turbo’. Other browsers have their special features a well. Maxthon can switch between 2 rendering engines. Lunascape can jump between three rendering engines – Trident (IE), Gecko (Ff) and WebKit (Chrome and Safari). It does that effortlessly. Depending on compatibility, the rendering of a given site might suffer. If ...
Not designed to start a ‘browser war’ here. Hankers sent me the link, and I thought it worth mentioning. Browsing the graph by geographic area showed some very interesting stats. It would seem that the most impressive gain for Chrome and loss for IE comes from South America. I didn’t see any place in which Chrome actually lost to IE, but there are several areas where IE holds a steady lead – Australia, Germany… interesting. It’s interesting to browse the site. Use the drop ...
“Rogue applications are malware that try to fool the user in believing that they are legit programs.” – gHacks.com It’s in its infancy, yet because it’s not clear which and how many varieties of malware it can remove just yet. It does have a restoration tool to fix any changes the malware might have made to your system. This tool is run in dos. The command lines can be run from a variety of command switches using /r or /? to display the help file which lists all the comm...
If you’ve been hankering for an iPhone, well here’s a 50% discount for you: Best Buy is going to be selling the older model iPhone (black and white 8 Gb model) for $49.99. A factoid: Best Buy sells as many iPhones as Apple does. Best Buy is clearing inventory before the next iPhone arrives later this year (September-October) and which is rumored to have a screen that’ll be 1/2 in. larger than at present. If you have gambling blood… wait. Best Buy did give away iPhones for...
If you’re seeing advertising where it shouldn’t be – like in the Wikipedia, you’ve been injected. The Chrome Extension “I Want This” is one of the tainted extensions. It’s easy to check for (Wrench>Tools>Extensions). I checked my Chrome and Comodo Dragon, and these aren’t injected. Similarly, you can check your Firefox (Orange Rectangle>Add ons>Extensions), IE (Tools>Manage add-ons>Toolbars and Extensions). So, if you see advertisements on the Wikipedia, y...
The latest Avira update which bumps your version to 8.2.10.64 and definitions file to 7.11.30.24 will detect \windows\system32\dllhost.exe \windows\system32\explorer.exe \windows\system32\iexplorer.exe \windows\system32\notepad.exe \windows\system32\regedit.exe \windows\system32\rundll32.exe \windows\system32\taskeng.exe \windows\system32\wuauclt.exe as being “positives” and will prevent Windows Boot, MS Office, MS Works (or d...
I hate calling any kind of company: “Please pay attention as our help menu has recently changed.” Bull. It never changes…but even worse, you make a mistake or get lost in the menu system which is and endlessly frustrating algorithm designed to induce homicidal rage … even in Nuns on Valium. So, Saadia Ozeri an Israeli biotech exec had to call his m-i-l’s cell phone company and ended up totally frustrated. Welcome to the club, Saadia. Only he did so...
Lots of folks use Chrome as their personal browser. What I hate doing is stopping what I’m working on to type (or I admit, more often than Zu) mistype what I’ve come across into the search engine’s search area. It’s a P.I.A. So, I’m on the prowl looking for goodies for you all and I came across this: Drag and Drop. You can find it here . It’s rated 5 stars and I agree. Nothing’s easier than choosing, clicking and dragging the phrase, name, or picture into whichever search ...
Unbelievable. Talk about shooting one’s self in the foot. For me, Windows 8 has gone from bad to worse. So now, in the ARM version of W8, there will be no possibility of installing a third party browser, per the MS blog (1). So, for x86 systems, free access to all browsers. For tablets with ARM, “No soup for you!” and no “Come back one year.” MS forgot it said quite the opposite in the past (2). Asa Dotzler won’t let MS forget the page the...
The latest fixes 22 security flaws, in seven “Security Bulletins”, of which 3 are rated “Critical” and 4 are rated “Important”. Most of these address remote code execution (RCE) (unfortunately not executing those responsible). RCE allows take over of your computer by a hacker acting from a distance. Good news, none of these flaws have been exploited yet. The biggest flaws are in MSO 2003, 2007 and MSO for Mac 2011 and had to do with the way Rich Text is handled. I str...
While tooling around this morning, I came across this site which has tons of free graphics goodies like stock photos, textures, vectors, icons, fonts, brushes, psd files, psd templates, illustrations, fireworks files, stuff for Flash, and templates for Wordpress themes, Joomla, Website, Drupal – special for Betty), and Magento templates. You can see lots of what’s available here: All you have to do is subscribe (free). Go here, artists: http:/...
Well, that’s a novel lobbyist. One a legislator might have some second thoughts about refusing. That’s one reason (among several) I find this newest news item very disturbing. Apparently, the shift from prior use of traditional telephony to the Internet has made it more difficult for FBI agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illicit actions. Therefore, in meetings with the White House, Senators, and industry representatives senior FBI officials are arguing for Microsoft, Face...