Archive for March, 2010
Reduce stress and stay organized while running errands
By Gabriel at 20 March, 2010, 6:11 pm
A day of running errands can be stressful for anyone. A simple journey around town can involve a great deal of coordination, from planning what you need and where to go to finding a simple route around town that hits all the necessary destinations. Technology can help you get organized and reduce some of this stress.
Tip #1: Plan ahead using the Web
Before you set out, use the Web to check the local weather and possible traffic around town. You might also want to check the hours of operation for the stores you plan to visit; many times stores will post this information on their Web sites. You can use MSN for most planning needs.
Tip #2: Know your budget
Errands usually involve spending money, so double check to ensure that you have sufficient funds for your transactions. Determine your balance before you head out so you know how much you can spend. Personal finance software, like Microsoft Money, can help save you time.
Tip #3: Use a PDA to help you stay on track
A Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or Smartphone can be very helpful while on the road. You don’t want to forget anything while you’re out and about, so use your PDA to keep track of your different lists for shopping. Be sure to install Windows Mobile software and you will also be able to access Internet Explorer.
Tip #4: Travel efficiently—map your shopping route
There are several devices available for in-car navigation. If you’re looking for something affordable and easy to use, software might be the way to go. Microsoft Streets & Trips with GPS Locator can turn your laptop into a powerful navigation system.
Tip #5: Keep the kids entertained
Spending a lot of time in the car can be boring for children. To help alleviate their boredom, bring along some toys or travel games to keep them occupied and entertained. Consider bringing a laptop with Microsoft Encarta, which is both educational and entertaining, and doesn’t require an Internet connection.
Read the full article from Meredith Williams.
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Loading ...Anti-Phishing Working Group: CeCOS IV
By David Harley at 20 March, 2010, 8:05 am
The Anti-Phishing Working Group has asked its members to publicize the forthcoming Counter eCrime Operations Summit in Brazil, which I'm pleased to do.
This year the APWG is hosting it's fourth annual Counter eCrime Operations Summit (CeCOS IV) on May 11, 12 & 13 in São Paulo, Brazil. The Discounted Early Bird Registration rate will end [...]
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Macs, smartphones, security, the universe…
By David Harley at 20 March, 2010, 7:30 am
Wearing my vendor-independent Apple/smartphone commentary hat, I've just posted a couple of blogs on the Mac Virus site that some of you might find of interest. OK, suit yourselves.
"Touching (or Bumping) Base" addresses a mixed bag of issues:
Charlie Miller's presentation on fuzzing for "20 zero-day holes … in closed source Apple products" for [...]
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Dumb or Devilish? You Decide…
By David Harley at 19 March, 2010, 2:30 pm
[Update: so far I have two votes for dumb. Maybe I'm giving this spammer too much credit, and it is a simple "spam template fail" On the other hand, while I wouldn't vote "evil genius", I'd still love to know how many people actually fall for this - I don't have a problem [...]
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...“Highly Critical” Vulnerability In Firefox To Be Patched March 30
By Gabriel at 19 March, 2010, 9:34 am
A report by Secunia of an unpatched remote code execution vulnerability in current versions of Firefox has been confirmed by Mozilla. Secunia adds that there is supposed to be private exploit code written, although they haven’t seen it.
Mozilla responded with a security blog entry saying they were contacted directly by Evgeny Legerov, the researcher who found the bug. He provided them with sufficient information to reproduce it. The fix has already been written and will be included in an update scheduled for release on March 30.
The Secunia advisory says that it has only been confirmed on Firefox 3.6, but may also affect other versions. As we pointed out yesterday, the upcoming updates will include 3.0.19, the final version of the Firefox 3.0.x generation.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Intel Retains Bragging Rights With Gulftown 6-Core Processor
By Gabriel at 19 March, 2010, 6:11 am
“Intel today formally announced that the Core i7-980X Extreme processor–the 6-core chip code-named ‘Gulftown’ manufactured on the company’s 32nm process–are up this morning, and the results are pretty much what you’d expect: The chip seems to easily surpass the current Core i7 as the fastest desktop processor, although it’s clearly not aimed at the mainstream market.
Intel shared a lot of the technical details behind the 6-core chip based on the ‘Westmere’ architecture at the ISSCC show last month. This chip, called ‘Gulftown’ in the desktop version and ‘Westmere-EP’ in the server version, is a 1.17-billion transistor chip with 12 megabytes of Level 3 cache. It supports up to 12 simultaneously threads. Compared with the existing Core i7 desktop chips (known as ‘Bloomfield’ or ‘Lynnfield’ and based on the 45nm ‘Nehalem’ core), it has 6 cores instead of 4 and 12 megabytes of cache instead of 8. That’s a 50 percent improvement in both areas, in roughly the same size and power envelope. In other words, Moore’s Law continues.
PC Mag has a story on the release here and ExtremeTech has some benchmarks here. Lots of other sites have benchmarks, with the best I’ve seen at Tech Report, Tom’s Hardware and Legit Reviews.
The first benchmarks indicate pretty much what you’d expect. On applications that take advantage of multiple cores – such as many image rendering and high-performance computing applications, you see very notable improvements. (Often around 50%, reflecting 50% more cores and 50% more cache.)
On some very specialized items, the new chip does even better: the Westmere family includes special hardware for AES encryption and decryption, so those operations are much faster. But on applications that are sequential or can only use one or two cores, you don’t see much difference at all.
Like the previous Core i7 Extreme, the 980X has a list price of about $1,000, so it really only goes in the highest-end systems; and in systems built by hobbyists. (Expect to see versions at somewhat slower clock speeds for less money shortly). That means the chip makes sense for high-performance and certain compute-intensive applications. You will also find it in some high-end gaming systems, although it will probably make less of a difference there. (In fact, most gamers would be better off spending the difference between this and a lower-end dual-or quad-core processor on a high-end ATI or Nvidia graphics solution.)
Of course, AMD will be coming up with its own 6-core chip, code-named ‘Thuban’ and now confirmed to be called Phenom II X6, shortly.
Both companies have had these chips on their roadmaps for some time now, and it’s interesting the different paths AMD and Intel are taking with Intel ahead on manufacturing and emphasizing multi-threading; while AMD has been focusing more on power consumption and price.
For sheer performance, Intel has held the top spot for a while, and with Gulftown, it appears to be certain to hold on to it for this generation.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...120-Hz Displays: Can People Really See the Difference?
By Gabriel at 18 March, 2010, 5:42 pm
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I often wonder whether real consumers can tell the difference with some of the newer technologies in the market. A month ago, I got the chance to do an informal test of whether typical people could tell the difference between a 720p and a 1080p LCD display in the real world. This time, I tried a similar test: One set had a 60-Hz refresh rate, the other a 120-Hz refresh. I found the results a bit surprising.
The basic format was the same as last time. I set up a conference room at my office with two very similar 42-inch LCD TVs. Both are quite good 1080p sets made by LG Electronics: the LG 42LH30, which runs at 60 Hz, and the LG 42LH50, which adds a 120-Hz refresh rate as well as a few other features (such as Internet connectivity). For both sets, I used the factory defaults, which is what I think most consumers will actually use at home. I then invited my coworkers to judge which set they preferred, while both were playing back the opening chapter from the recent Star Trek movie on Blu-ray. I did not tell them what the difference was between the sets–I just asked which they preferred.
This is clearly not an ideal test situation. Purists would say the sets should be tested in a darkened room and carefully calibrated for best performance. But the setup I used is representative of the lighting and content many people will see in the real world.
Of the 51 participants, 64 percent said they preferred the 120-Hz set, 30 percent said they preferred the 60-Hz one, and 6 percent had no preference. On average, participants said they noticed the difference from about 10 feet back, though that may have been a factor of the size of the room or how long it took them to notice.
Interestingly, this was an even bigger preference than I saw in the 720p-versus-1080p test. To me, that was a surprise. I’ve seen some studies that suggest that consumers can’t actually see motion blur, such as this one from Ray Soneira of DisplayMate writing for ExtremeTech. Personally, I do notice the difference in refresh rate on tickers moving on screen, say with stock prices, but I’m hard-pressed to see it in most actual video. But after my test, I was surprised at the number of people–mostly younger ones–who told me the 120Hz set was clearly much faster than the other. (And at the time, they hadn’t been told there was a speed difference.) Their eyes may just be better than mine.
It is possible participants were noting other differences between the sets–noticing and preferring subtle variations in the color, contrast, and so on,. and of course, the higher-end set should be better on other factors as well. But the big difference in the marketing is the refresh rate. Of course, 30 percent of the sample picked the set with the slower refresh rate, so the difference is clearly not crucial for all TV buyers. Not everyone could see the difference, but I was surprised how many could.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...The Return of Jacques Tits
By Aryeh Goretsky at 18 March, 2010, 4:04 pm
It has been a year since we last discussed fraudulent domain name registrar scams and we wanted to let people know that this scam continues unabated.
In a nutshell, a message is sent to a publicly-visible email address listed on your website (sales, support, the CEO’s office, a public relations contact, et cetera) from a Chinese [...]
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...You are the weakest link…
By David Harley at 18 March, 2010, 1:22 pm
Greetings, friends and fiends.
It's been a while since I've been able to blog: I've been trying out one of these vacation thingies that I keep reading about in travel magazines. (Well, my wife does, and she tells me when I need a holiday, presumably as my conversations get grouchier.) But I see that my colleagues [...]
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Personalize your PC: It’s all about you
By Gabriel at 18 March, 2010, 11:23 am
Personalize your PC: It’s all about you: “
There’s only one thing better than getting a brand-new PC—getting a brand-new PC set up exactly the way you want it. Take the time up front to do some simple customization and you’ll get a PC that truly reflects who you are—and that organizes all your information so you can spend more time on the things that matter.
5 tips for customizing your desktop
Tip #1: Change your desktop background
Right-click anywhere on your desktop and select Personalize. Then choose Desktop Background. If the picture you want to use isn’t displayed, simply navigate to the correct folder. Alternatively, you can select any picture on your PC or the Internet, right-click, and select Set as Background.
Tip #2: Customize your theme
To choose the theme that you want to use, right-click on the desktop, select Personalize, and then choose Windows Vista or Windows Classic. Want something completely new? No problem. You can download many different themes from the Internet—simply search for Windows Vista themes (and make sure that you’re downloading from a site you trust). Then, when you’re choosing a theme, select Browse, and navigate to the folder where you’ve saved the theme.
Tip #3: Check out Sidebar
If you’ve recently gotten a new PC running Windows Vista, you’ll probably notice the icons running down the right side of your desktop. Each of the icons you see is a Gadget, or a mini program that pulls information straight to your desktop. Delete any Gadgets you don’t want by clicking the X on the left side of the Gadget. Add more by right-clicking the plus sign at the top. You can choose from Gadgets already included in Windows Vista, or view hundreds of Gadgets available for download by clicking Get more gadgets online.
Tip #4: Personalize desktop icons
Sometimes it’s fun to shake up how desktop icons look, too. Right-click on the desktop, select Personalize, and then click Change Desktop Icons under Tasks on the left-hand side. Then choose the icon you would like to change and click Change Icon. From there, you can view your options. And just like themes, you can download many different icons from the Internet. You can also change the size of your icons by Right-clicking on the desktop and selecting View. Decide whether you want to display icons on the desktop, and then choose between large, medium, and classic (small) icons.
Tip #5: Take advantage of Quick Launch
If there are programs you use regularly, think about putting them on your Quick Launch bar, located right next to the Start icon. To add applications, you can either drag the icon onto your Quick Launch bar, or you can right-click on the icon and select Add to Quick Launch.
Next step: Take the deep dive on personalizing your PC
If you thought customizing your desktop was the only way to stake a claim on your PC, think again. From screensavers and skins to calendars, interacting with your computer has never been easier. Get more tips by reading the full version of this article at http://www.microsoft.com/athome/moredone/personalizevista.mspx.“
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