Google plans to become net-access nanny

Google is planning to release tools that let internet users know if their service provider (ISP) is tampering with their internet connection - for example by throttling access to popular bandwidth-heavy sites.

It is the latest round of the net neutrality debate. Net neutrals like Google say the the internet should be a straightforward commodity. Although you may pay more or less for access, what you get is always the same - freedom to use and access the internet as you wish, with all those potential activities being treated the same by your ISP.

In the opposite corner are those who think ISPs should be able to choose which services they support, and which they don't. For example, under this scheme an ISP could slow all traffic to pizza delivery sites except those it had commercial agreements with.

Google's planned software will let you know when that is happening, by presenting an easy-to-understand breakdown of how your connection has been performing. Exactly how has not been revealed. I'm guessing one way would be to let you know if certain applications or websites consistently perform badly on your connection, compared to Google's own data on how they usually perform.

Google is one of the most influential pro-neutrality organisations. But its as-yet-unnamed tool (Throottle, Nootral?) is unlikely to be downloaded by large numbers of people.

If Google wanted to push it to more than just principled geeks it could throw it in with Google Toolbar, which already comes bundled with other software. Adding the neutrality nanny into that mix could dramatically increase its impact.

OpenStomp Coyote-1 Open-source guitar Processer in development

There've been a couple attempts to get an open-source guitar processor project off the ground Pandora GP2X-style, but we haven't seen much in the way of progress until now, with the OpenStomp Coyote-1 project. It's still in the prototype phase, but it looks well thought-out, with a Parallax Propeller 8-core processor running at 80MHz at its heart that can even generate basic video, 44kHz 24-bit sampler, two foot switches, and a two-line LCD screen for feedback. The main dev, Eric Moyer, says he wants the pedal to serve as an "audio sandbox" with totally open-source software and fully documented hardware, and we've got say we're pretty intrigued by the idea -- we'll be watching this one closely.

Hitachi brings up with the rear with its CP-WX625 LCD Projector

Although the flood calmed to a trickle, we're still seeing a few more new projectors light up at InfoComm. The latest of which is Hitachi's CP-WX625, a WXGA (1,366 x 768) beamer packing an HDMI socket, 4,000 ANSI lumens, integrated speaker, side-mounted hybrid filter, a lamp good for 3,000 hours or so of PowerPoint projecting and a handful of other inputs more likely to be found in the boardroom / classroom. Mum's the word on a price or availability, but after one look at Samsung's SP-A800B, it's hard to really worry over units like this.

e-detail's twin-screen Prezenter PSR tablets get detailed

e-Detail's Prezenter PSR was floating around CES a few months ago, but now it seems that the Korean firm has managed to get its atypical tablet into trials here in America and in Europe. In a nutshell, the dual-screen unit includes a 14.1-inch touch panel that ideally gets pointed in the face of your client; the 7-inch touchscreen faces you, giving you clues on what to say next and enabling the traveling salesperson (still you, bub) to give a presentation without being all up in the area of the potential customer. Specs wise, it runs Windows XP Home and gets powered by an AMD Geode LX800 processor, and there's also a trio of USB 2.0 ports, VGA output, gigabit Ethernet jack, WiFi and a 1.3-megapixel camera. We're hearing that it'll eventually sell for around $1,800, but a US release date is still far from certain.

NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB + hits the bench

Yeah, that bench . NVIDIA's just-announced-yesterday GeForce 9800 GTX+ has already been used and abused for your satisfaction, and the folks over at PC Perspective have the benchmarks to prove it. The 55nm-based card was pit against an 8800 GT and AMD's extraordinarily fresh Radeon HD 4850, but we're not going to insert any spoilers in this space (okay, so it fared well... really well). All the graphs and screen captures you crave are waiting just down there.

Dell Studio Hybrid mini PC leak reveals specs, new casing

Remember that tidy little bamboo-encased mini PC Dell showed off in April? Well apparently the company is at work on a variant of the diminutive system, dubbed the Studio Hybrid. In addition to forgoing the eco-friendly wood for what appears to be a sleek, orange Plexiglas shell, the system boasts an Intel chipset, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, WiFi, a DVD+R drive, five USB ports, an HDMI port, S/PDIF, DVI, and a memory card reader. We're not sure exactly when Dell plans to unleash these on consumers or what the final cost will be, though previously the company had stated plans to offer it later this year for between $500 and $700. Check the gallery below for a few more (blurry) shots of the device.

ATI Radeon HD 4850 gets official:available immediately

Considering that we've already seen AMD's ATI Radeon HD 4850benchmarked, it's not like we really needed some official verbiage to cement our belief that the unit was real. Nevertheless, said verbiage certainly doesn't hurt, and that's precisely what's been delivered this morning. The HD 4850 is a single-slot PCIe 2.0 card featuring 512MB of DDR3 RAM, a 625MHz clock speed, 993MHz memory speed, 480 stream processors and support for CrossFireX / DirectX 10.1. We're also told that at least Diamond Multimedia's HD 4850 is available as we speak from a number of fine retailers, thus we presume everyone else's version of the card shouldn't be too far behind.

Panasonic reveals new DLP Projectors: 12,000 Lumens and pixels galore

Hmmph. Outside of Samsung's blisteringly hot SPA800B, we're fairly certain Panasonic's latest duo are the most impressive at InfoCOmm. Putting those XGA / WXGA units to shame, the PT-DZ12000U packs a drool-worthy WUXGA resolution (1,920 x 1,200) and 12,000 lumens to boot. The PT-D12000U checks in with the same three-chip DLP engine and lumen count, but eases up on the pixels with just 1,400 x 1,050. Furthermore, both units boast a System Daylight View to keep things visible even in well lit rooms, and the built-in Ethernet port enables remote monitoring and control through a web browser. Just one problem with all of this, though: the $69,000 (PT-DZ12000U) / $59,000 (PT-D12000U) price tags. Must be that Auto Cleaning Robot -- good help is hard to find these days.

QSTRAZ intros diminutive BTQ-1300/BTQ-890 BlueTooth GPS Receivers

Leave it to QSTRAZ to innovate so dramatically upon the tried-and-true Bluetooth GPS receiver design. Okay, so maybe it just created two new 66-channel ones that are exceptionally small. Up first is the new BT-Q1300, a "miniature" device that's dubbed the world's smallest travel recorder. Continuing on with superlatives, we see "the best" of the best in the BT-Q890, which measures in at 60- x 40- x 7-millimeters and is somehow also the "world's smallest GPS receiver." We're on to your fuzzy math, QSTARZ, and we don't like it one bit.

ASUS ARES CG6155 Gaming PC: 4.0GHz QX9650,GEForce GTX280,braging rights

What's that, Acer? Your vicious predator not feel so dominant now? ASUS just dropped a bombshell with the official release of the ARES CG6150 that first surfaced at CeBIT, and for gamers who accept nothing less than cutting edge, this is your rig. From the top, we've got an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (overclockable to 4.0GHz) processor, NVIDIA's nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, a 3-way SLI setup with GeForce GTX280s, up to 4TB of HDD space, a Blu-ray optical drive, twin gigabit Ethernet jacks, two power supplies and a custom liquid cooling arrangement. ASUS is being tight-lipped (as usual) with pricing / release information, but let's just assume you'll need a serious stack of Benjamins to even sniff this beast.

Lenovo Kills off 3000 lines, fold y series into IdeaPad Family, K series inti Idea centre

This probably won't be ruining anybody's day, but if you were hoping to buy a Lenovo with 3000 scrawled somewhere on it, you're pretty much out of luck. Lenovo has apparently killed off the entirety of its budget-friendly 3000 lineups, both laptop and desktop. The Y Series 3000 laptops are now gone in place Y710 and 7510 Series IdeaPads, and the fugly old 3000 K100 desktops gone, with only K210 IdeaCentre desktops available in their place. Not earth-shattering, but the IdeaPad and IdeaCentre brands are already off to a strong start, with much better design than the 3000 series, but similarly low prices. And besides, we suppose they needed all those excess 0's for the Olympics. You know, for the rings. No? You always hate our jokes. Die in a fire.

Auzen X-Fi Home Theature 7.1 HDMI Sound card does bitstream output from your HTPC

Earlier this month, ASUS introduced the "world's first HDMI 1.3a compliant audio / video enhancement combo card." Who knew numero dos was so close behind? Auzentech has just announced its very own HDMI 1.3-native PCIe audio combo card, which is built around Creative's X-Fi and enables PC users to easily output 7.1-channel audio with no downsampling. Essentially, the Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater 7.1 "accepts video from either an internal or external connection, mixes it with digital audio, and outputs the combined video and lossless multichannel audio via a single HDMI 1.3 port." Yep, that means Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio codecs are fully supported. The only digs? For one, pricing remains a mystery, but the real kicker is the September release -- talk about a long wait.

ARM9 boards get firmware update for 0.69-second Debian Boot-up

Technologic Systems' TS-7800 ARM9 single-board computer already had quite a bit going for it with its promised 2-second Debian boot times, but the company's now gone and let loose a new firmware upgrade that cuts that down to under a second -- 0.69 seconds, to be exact. As you might expect, that time is helped considerably by being able to boot the OS (Debian Sarge, specifically) off of the board's 512MB of NAND flash, and in that 0.69 seconds you will only get a linux shell prompt and access to the Busybox file system but, still, it is an OS booted in 0.69 seconds.

The worst computer viruses of all time

If you haven't experienced a computer virus yet, just wait -- you probably will.

Fortunately, you missed the real heyday of computer viruses when anti-virus software wasn't very widely used, and virus attacks caused millions of dollars in damages overnight. Today's viruses can still be nightmarish, but for the average user, cleanup is considerably easier than it was just a few years ago, when the only solution in many cases was reformatting your hard drive and starting from scratch (and even that didn't do the trick sometimes).

So join me on a trip down memory lane as we revisit some of the worst viruses of all time and count our blessings that our computers are still up and running despite it all. (Though, please note, "worst" is a matter of considerable debate in the security industry, as the number of infected machines and amount of financial loss is always estimated. If you think another virus was worse than these, please post it in the comments to remind me!)

The worst viruses of all time

Brain, 1986
It all started here: Brain was the first "real" virus ever discovered, back in 1986. Brain didn't really hurt your PC, but it launched the malware industry with a bang and gave bad ideas to over 100,000 virus creators for the next 2 decades.

Michelangelo, 1991
The worst MS-DOS virus ever, Michelangelo attacked the boot sector of your hard drive and any floppy drive inserted into the computer, which caused the virus to spread rapidly. After spreading quietly for months, the virus "activated" on March 6, and promptly started destroying data on tens of thousands of computers.

Melissa, 1999
Technically a worm, Melissa (named after a stripper) collapsed entire email systems by causing computers to send mountains of messages to each other. The author of the virus was eventually caught and sentenced to 20 months in prison.

ILOVEYOU, 2000
This was notable for being one of the first viruses to trick users into opening a file, which in this case claimed to be a love letter sent to the recipient. In reality, the file was a VBS script that sent mountains of junk mail and deleted thousands of files. The results were terribly devastating- one estimate holds that 10 percent of all computers were affected, to a cost of $5.5 billion. It remains perhaps the worst worm of all time.

Code Red, 2001
An early "blended threat" attack, Code Red targeted Web servers instead of user machines, defacing websites and later launching denial-of-service attacks on a host of IP addresses, including those of the White House.

Nimda, 2001
Built on Code Red's attack system of finding multiple avenues into machines (email, websites, network connections, and others), Nimda infected both Web servers and user machines. It found paths into computers so effectively that, 22 minutes after it was released, it became the Internet's most widespread virus at the time.

Klez, 2001
An email virus, Klez pioneered spoofing the "From" field in email messages it sent, making it impossible to tell if Bill Gates did or did not really send you that information about getting free money.

Slammer, 2003
Another fast spreader, this worm infected about 75,000 systems in just 10 minutes, slowing the Internet to a crawl (much like Code Red) and shutting down thousands of websites.

MyDoom, 2004
Notable as the fastest-spreading email virus of all time, MyDoom infected computers so they would, in turn, send even more junk mail. In a strange twist, MyDoom was also used to attack the website of SCO Group, a very unpopular company that was suing other companies over its code being used in Linux distributions.

Storm, 2007
The worst recent virus, Storm spread via email spam with a fake attachment and ultimately infected up to 10 million computers, causing them to join its zombie botnet.

Some Tricks for MS Windows !!!

Just a little bit of easy bugs discoverd.............

Trick #1

An Indian discovered that nobody can create a FOLDER anywhere on the computer which can be named as "CON". This is something pretty cool...and unbelievable... why this happened!

TRY IT NOW ,IT WILL NOT CREATE " CON " FOLDER


Tricks #2

For those of you using Windows, do the following:
1.) Open an empty notepad file
2.) Type "Bush hid the facts" (without the quotes)
3.) Save it as whatever you want.
4.) Close it, and re-open it.

isn't it just a really weird bug? ??


Trick #3

Microsoft crazy facts
This is something pretty cool and neat...and unbelievable... It was discovered by a Brazilian. Try it out yourself...

Open Microsoft Word and type
=rand (200, 99)
And then press ENTER
then see the magic...............................

Could future computer viruses infect humans?

Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Reading University and a man who has wired up his nervous system to a computer and put an RFID chip in his arm, is looking forward to becoming a cyborg once again - but warned the day will come when computer viruses can infect humans as well as PCs.

Speaking this week at Consult Hyperion's fifth Digital Identity Forum, Warwick said it won't be long before those who aren't cyborgs will be considered the odd ones out.

"For those of you that want to stay human... you'll be a subspecies in the future," he said.

Warwick believes that there are advantages for a human who is networked to a computer.

Networking a human brain would mean an almost "infinite knowledge base", he said, adding it would be akin to "upgrading humans... giving us abilities we don’t already have".

Warwick says the security problems that dog modern computing won't be much different from those that could plague the cyborgs of the future.

"We're looking at software viruses and biological viruses becoming one and the same," he said. "The security problems [will] be much, much greater... they will have to become critical in future."

If humans were networked, the implications of being hacked would be far more serious and attitudes towards hackers would be radically changed, he added.

"Now, hackers' illegal input into a network is tolerated," said Warwick, but if humans were connected to the internet and hacks carried out, "this would be pushing the realms of tolerance".

With his own networking experiments, in which he used his body's connectivity to operate a mechanical arm in the US, Warwick refused to publicise the IP address of his arm in case someone hijacked it.

While the advent of networked humans may be a significant way off, Warwick's experiments are intended to have a practical purpose. He has been working with Stoke Mandeville hospital on the possible implications of the networked human for those with spinal injuries; for example, to enable people to control a wheelchair through their nervous system.

Nevertheless, Warwick said the idea of marrying humanity and technology isn't currently a popular one. Talking of his RFID experiments, he said: "I got a lot of criticism, I don't know why."

Putting RFID chips in arms is now more than a novelty. Party goers at one club in Barcelona can choose to have RFID chips implanted in their arms as a means of paying for their drinks and some Mexican law enforcement officials had the chips implanted as a means of fending off attempted kidnappings.

The US Food and Drug Administration has also recently approved the use of RFID in humans. One potential application would be allowing medical staff to draw information on a patient's health from the chip.

How to beat spyware and viruses in better way???

Here's my perennial "How to Beat Spyware".




Here's what to do if you suspect an infection on your Windows PC. (Please note these steps apply to both Windows XP and Vista.)

1) Are you sure it's spyware or a virus?



Windows pop-ups and alerts can often seem invasive enough to be viruses, especially with Vista. Try searching the web for the exact text you see on the screen to make sure you aren't dealing with an aggressive Windows message. (Many of these can be turned off, so try whatever instructions you find.) On the other hand, some viruses masquerade as Windows alerts, so tread lightly.

2) Boot in safe mode. If you have a virus, first step is to try booting in safe mode. You can get to safe mode (a simplified version of Windows that disables a lot of extra junk, possibly including some spyware apps) by restarting your PC and tapping F8 during boot. Soon you'll get a menu of options. Select "Safe Mode" (it's at the top of the menu) and wait for the machine to fully boot. The system will look funny (with a black background and larger icons, probably), but don't worry about it. This is only temporary. (Also note that many spyware applications can disable safe mode, so if you find this doesn't work, just boot normally.)

3) Run your antivirus application. This is of course assuming you have an antivirus application. You're in safe mode now, so run a full scan of your PC at maximum security levels (include the option to scan within compressed files, for example). This will probably take an hour or more, so be patient. Fix any problems the virus scan turns up. Then reboot into safe mode again using the procedure in step 2.

4) Run one or two anti-spyware applications. I used to recommend running multiple anti-spyware apps, but virtually all antivirus apps now do a pretty good job at getting rid of spyware too, so you don't need an army of additional applications just for spyware. Also, I now recommend starting with AdAware (which is free) and moving on to Spyware Doctor (free as part of the Google Pack) if you feel you need additional help. (Please note that recent versions of Spyware Doctor and Norton Antivirus have some trouble with each other.) You can try other apps too, but the once-recommended SpyBot Search & Destroy is no longer very effective, sadly. (Neither is Microsoft's own Windows Defender.) Of course, fix anything and everything these apps find.

5) Reboot normally. (Not in safe mode.) Now take stock. Still got spyware? It's time to move along to my more advanced techniques for removing the nasties.

6) Run HijackThis. HijackThis is a free software tool that scans your computer to find malware that other apps might miss. Scroll down to "Official downloads" to download the tool. Next, simply open the ZIP file you downloaded, extract the application, and run the tool (you don't need to install it). Click the "Do a system scan and save a logfile" button. You'll receive a large text file as well as a dialog box which gives you a list of active software processes, which you can then choose to delete. Unfortunately, this list includes both helpful and unhelpful software, so don't just start deleting items. Continue in step 7 to figure out how to fix your spyware infection.

7) Post your log file online. Visit this page, which offers a list of forums staffed by volunteers who can help you interpret your HijackThis log. The SWI Forums are especially busy, but most of the forums on the list are equally apt. Go to SWI and visit the "Malware Removal" forum which has over 50,000 topics listed: Those are all people like you who are seeking help getting rid of spyware. Register for an account, read the FAQ, then visit that Malware Removal forum, and post a new topic. Paste the content of the text file you created in step 5 into this topic and (politely) ask for help. You will get a response from a volunteer helper, typically within 3 days. You'll be given specific advice on what entries to remove with the HijackThis tool, and you might be pointed to additional software to run to help remove common spyware infections. Follow all the instructions and keep working with the forum helpers until either you or they give up. (And no, don't send your log file to me or post it here. I am not nearly the spyware removal expert that these guys are.)

7a) Alternately: Paste your log file into an automated tool. Don't have three days? Try simply pasting your HijackThis log file into this form. It does a pretty good job at auto-analyzing what's wrong with your machine, with no waiting. As well, if that doesn't work, you can search for the items you find in the HijackThis log by name to see what they are and how to remove them, if they're spyware. This can be quite time consuming, though.

8) Try System Restore. If that doesn't work, you might try running Windows System Restore to roll back your OS to a time before the infection happened. This isn't foolproof: You might not have System Restore turned on, or the spyware might have shut System Restore off, as well. But it's worth a shot. With either XP or Vista, System Restore can be found under Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore.

9) Give up and wipe your hard drive. At this point, you've exhausted all the options I know of. You might try again at steps 6/7 to make sure you've done everything you can to salvage the PC. Forum helpers will often work with you for weeks to help fight a spyware infection, but there are tens of thousands of possible variants out there, with new ones cropping up every day. It's just not possible to clean them all, every time. Sometimes the only thing you can do is call it quits, reformat your hard drive, and reinstall your OS. Again, make sure you have your backups ready and verified. Once you're up and running, reinstall your antivirus and anti-spyware applications, and stay vigilant against infection. Good luck.

How To: Enable Compiz effects on Fedora Core 6 with an nVidia Card

I installed Fedora Core 6 in my system on Last week - ok yeah I know I need to get a better life. But, hey I was just mesmerized by reading the new features in Core 6 - named Zod that I had to try. Well, Zod is NO god!! After 3 reinstallations and reading through millions of articles on What the hell is the problem with Fedora Core 6, I finally managed to get everything up and working!!

Some basic instructions to the newbie planning to install Fedora Core 6.

Solving the i686 architecture with the i586 kernel and kernel-devel problem:
If you are planning to install FC6 on an i686 architecture - make note of this!! Anaconda screws up BIG TIME, and installs the i586 kernel and kernel-devel on ur i686 machine. Normally this is not a problem, however, CPU Frequency controller daemon will not work and it’ll be a pain in various parts of the anatomy if your driver / program requires a kernel-module to be installed along with it. The worst part - your architecture is still maintained as i686!! Just that anaconda installs the i586 kernel!!

Solution:


1. 1. Install yumex$ su -
   $ yum -y install yumex
2. 2. Once the installation is over, get into yumex
3. [Applications->System Tools-> Yum Extender]
4. 3. Go to the Install View once it’s done updating everything
5. 4. Install kernel-xen and kernel-devel-xen packages for the i686 architecture
6. 5. Once installation is done, reboot into the xen kernel
   
7. [which itself is not really worth having owing to tons of problems].
8. 6. Go to yumex again and remove kernel and kernel-devel packages currently for the i586 architecture
9. 7. Once it is done, Go to the Install View and add kernel and kernel-devel packages, but now for the i686 architecture
10. 8. Once it is done, reboot into the non-xen kernel and remove kernel-xen and kernel- devel-xen packages
11. 9. Boom you are done and you can get to installing the packages for nvidia/ati drivers, ntfs support etc.

I read there is a simpler way - aka the more adventurous way of getting ur kernel to the i686 architecture. It’s provided here!! Me, not being so adventurous, especially on breaking Linux 3 times after installation, I stuck to the safer bet :-D!

Solving the Desktop Effects cannot be enabled problem for nVidia cards
Another crazy thing I noticed - after reading so much about Compiz being installed by default with Fedora Core 6 and GNome 2.16 is that - try as I may - it never got enabled!! Aaarrgghhh!! Well, so I went to the Compiz requirements site - and checked that for it to work with nVidia cards, it required driver 1.0-9625 or higher..

Known Working

ATI: Radeon 7000 through X850 (r100 through r400 generations)
Intel: i830 through i945
nVidia: all cards supported by the driver 1.0-9625 or higher

[source: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RenderingProject/aiglx]

And the latest stable driver in the Livna repo for Fedora Core 6 is 1.0-8776. Umm - what DO you do?

Solution:

1. 1. Enable livna-testing repo.
2. 2. Go to the update view in Yum Extender
3. 3. Select kmod-nvidia and the xorg-x11-drv packages which are 1.0-9626. Update your drivers people!! and Boom!! After a reboot - thou shall be able to enable Desktop Effects. Enjoy rotating the cube and all sortsa window wobbly effects.

Note: The Window Wobbly effects could get to you after some time, if you move around your Windows a lot :-D!!

Note to self: Need to post more links and screenshots of the same. Shall get to that in a day or two!