Tech News
And for once it’s not a computer one
Health officials in Washington State have issued a warning of a virus outbreak on the Microsoft campus at Redmond, but it’s the creation of nature rather than a hacker.
The alert is for a case of measles that was picked up by an employee while overseas and which the authorities are keen to stop from spreading. The US has about 350 cases of measles reported each year.
Full story: vnunet.com
A systematic way to maintain your hard drives.
Features
• Cleans unwanted files
• Defrags drives
• Scans drives for integrity
• Check for viruses
• Checks for bad uninstalls
• Schedule it to run
• Use your own defragger
• Launch any of your favorite programs from it
Requires Windows XP or Vista and Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.
Download: DrvCareVista 5.3.
View: Homepage
Google is taking a page from Microsoft’s well-worn playbook for tech industry domination: Rather than just rolling out new products and features, the search giant is trying to win the hearts and minds of Web developers.
Earlier this week, Google introduced Google Talk instant messenger and an upgrade to Google Desktop Search, which adds a product called Sidebar that pulls data from the Net and serves up a personalized panel of information such as e-mail, stock quotes and news.
Both offerings, notably Sidebar, have the potential to lure away current Microsoft users, analysts said. But Google–in a technique perfected long ago at Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters–has made software developers an important target audience as well. As with nearly all its services, Google is supporting standards and providing hooks intended to let outside developers create add-on products.
Full article: C|net
Aiming to step up its battle against malicious Web sites, Microsoft said Wednesday that its MSN unit will offer a browser add-in that will help identify both known scam sites as well as those that appear suspicious.
Microsoft is already building similar “antiphishing” features into Windows Internet Explorer 7, the next version of its browser. In the new browser, users will be interrupted and warned when they try to go to a site that is known to deceptively try to grab personal information, a practice known as phishing. Those who go to sites not known as scam sites, but whose behavior appears suspicious, will see a warning.
MSN product manager Justin Osmer said that his unit will offer the same technology in a similar manner to users of the current Internet Explorer 6 browser via a plug-in to the free MSN toolbar that works in conjunction with IE6.
Full article: ZDNet News
All those living in the US that is
Gmail, the free email service run by Google, has officially moved beyond beta stage and is open to anyone in the US.
The service had been available only to those invited to join, but now the service is open to any US resident with a mobile phone. New users can sign up for the service and get a code sent to their mobile phone that allows them to open an account.
“Why use mobile phones?” said Google in its corporate blog.
“It’s a way to help us verify that an account is being created by a real person, and that one person isn’t creating thousands of accounts. We want to keep our system as spam-free as possible, and making sure accounts are used by real people is one way to do that.”
Full article: vnunet.com
Big Blue combines Intel workstation and server teams
IBM today lifted the lid off its latest top-of-the-range Intel-based workstation, the IntelliStation M Pro 6218, which the company said has been built using the same quality assurance and testing processes as its high end xSeries servers.
Based on the latest 64-bit Intel Dual Core Pentium D processor, the workstations are designed to run applications such as mechanical design, electronic design, drug discovery and digital content creation.
The IntelliStation M Pro delivers up to eight Gigabytes of maximum memory ?جø¬?double that of its predecessor. Combining this expanded memory with 64-bit processor technology and a 64-bit operating system can improve the performance of CPU-intensive applications such as Autodesk’s 3ds Max by up to 39 per cent, IBM claimed.
Read more: vnunet.com
Minimo developer Doug Turner has announced that Minimo 0.008 is now available for Windows CE devices. Amongst other changes, this latest version of the mobile browser adds support for SSL (allowing connections to secure sites), a spatial navigation feature for selecting links, a full screen mode and support for clipboard operations (cut, copy and paste). Where available, Minimo 0.008 also integrates with phone features of the device it is running on, allowing users to select some text and then try to call it. Startup performance is also improved and several bugs have been fixed.
Full article: MozillaZine
When it comes to power management on most electronic devices, things are pretty simple. There’s “off,” and then there’s “on.”
But computers, particularly those running Windows, have always been more complicated. On is on, of course. For off, though, Windows XP machines offer several options–including hibernate, stand by and shut down.
“Users don’t always understand the difference,” said Pat Stemen, a program manager in Microsoft’s core operating-system division.
What’s worse is that even when people do know enough to choose hibernate or stand by, which turn off most parts of the system but don’t clear files away, the computer often ends up staying on. That’s because today’s Windows lets an application or hardware device veto a PC user’s decision.
That won’t be the case in Windows Vista. Applications will be warned that a computer is entering sleep and have a second or two to save what ever they need to, but the programs won’t get a say in whether the machine slumbers.
And with Vista, Microsoft plans to make it so that a PC seems more like all the other consumer electronics out there. Pressing the power button will give users the feeling they are either turning the machine on or turning it off.
In reality, pressing the button to off will more likely send the machine into some form of sleep mode than turn it off. PC manufacturers will be able to map a shut down or a sleep option to the button’s off position–including several sleep modes being developed by Microsoft.
Full article: CNET News.com
Installation of the Media Pack will ensure that software programs and Web sites that rely on Windows files not included in Windows XP Home Edition N or Windows XP Professional N will work properly. After you install this update, you may need to restart your computer.
System Requirements
• Supported Operating Systems: Windows XP Service Pack 2
Download: Update for Windows XP (KB886540)
A new MSN Messenger worm often talks to people in their own tongue as it hunts for new victims, security experts have warned.
The worm, dubbed Kelvir.HI, tailors the language of its attack message to the compromised system, said David Jaros, the director of product marketing at security vendor Akonix Systems, on Wednesday. It can send messages in English, Dutch, French, German, Greek (English alphabet), Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Spanish and Turkish, he noted.
“It appears to check which language the Windows client is configured to use,” he said. “This is the first time that we have seen a worm that checks the system settings and then sends a specific message.”
Read more: ZDNet News
The first Microsoft product I ever shipped, Windows 95, launched 10 years ago today. Around the same time we also launched Internet Explorer 1.0 (thought with considerably less fanfare), which quickly gave way to IE 2.0 (which shipped with the Plus! Pack for Windows 95). 6 years later we launched Windows XP, which shipped IE 6.0. That’s more or less 1 new version of IE a year for 6 years. Of course the pace with which we ship versions of IE has dropped off since then with our most notable recent release being Internet Explorer for Windows XP SP2 in 2004, but it’s nice to be back on track with Internet Explorer 7 on the horizon.
Full article: IEBlog
Internet telephony firm Skype is opening up its technology to third party developers. The move means coders will be able to integrate Skype’s presence and instant messaging services into their website or applications. In opening up to third party developers, Skype boasted that it was creating the “largest open instant messaging platform” in the world. The SkypeNet and SkypeWeb Application Programming Interface (API) will be opened up as part of the wider Skype Developer Program, which already supports a community of partners and developers.
Read more: The Register
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