Thoughts and links from the crew of the On Computers Radio Show as we wander the Web.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Microsoft preps Vista to thwart rogue gadgets
I think MS is on the right track, here. At least some resistance to malware has to be built into the operating system, if for no reason that it complements your security software (AV and such).
Jack
Spamming printers from the Web? Researcher shows how
Printer spam will no doubt start arriving soon.
Jack
Shuttle's $199 Linux PC
Right now; my money would go towards an Everex machine, weaker processor and all. It's more like a "traditional" PC and the Linux on it serves just fine, by all accounts. XP is something of an unneeded option in this class. Potential be damned. Real capabilities count for more.
Jack
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Sony to sell unrestricted music downloads on Amazon
Now we don't know the price, but Sony would be well advised to not charge more for their a la carte MP3 than the other labels. That is generally between $.79 and $.99 apiece. In light of the rootkit fiasco in 2005 (that seems to still be mentioned in every article about Sony DRM, this one included) there is still a lot of hate and discontent towards the company amongst the CD buying and MP3 buying public.
This time I'll wait and see what they do before I rant. I just hope they don't screw it up.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
CES: Asus to super-size the wee Eee
Besides Asus' models, there are several others, including the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO device, combined in almost instantly giving legitimacy the market segment.
I think it is fair to say that sooner or later a lot of us are going to be looking at this type of device for ourselves.
Jack
New rootkit hides in hard drive's boot record
Once again; the moral is patch, patch and patch.
Jack
Here comes Origami 2.0
Microsoft is not going to take the success of those other sub-notebook devices lying down. They're obviously on a war footing over this one and I think they might just put out an OS and software for some compelling machines this time around.
Jack
AT&T and Other ISPs May Be Getting Ready to Filter
I don't engage in the kind of activities that would be filtered but this is scary to me, none-the-less.
What's a Widget Worth?
Jack
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Welcome to Open Voices
This is definitely one to keep an eye on.
Jack
Apple's flash sub-notebook rumours fuelled
Anyway, here's a bit of gasoline tossed on the spark.
Jack
» Geeks.com not so ‘Hacker Safe’ | Zero Day | ZDNet.com
If you’ve been a Geeks.com customer in the last year you may want to monitor your credit report.
This is the company we have a link to on our web site.
AlaskaJoe
Sony Offers DRM-Free Digital Downloads?
(If in the near future they do offer DRM free downloads as singles at reasonable prices, as other labels are doing, I will take the above statement back.)
Monday, January 07, 2008
Microsoft admits Office 2003 'mistake'
Have you ever noticed that when Corporate America decides what is best for consumers, they are usually proven decisively wrong?
CES: BitMicro preps 832GB solid state drive for launch
Because of service life issues, I'm not sure I'm ready to accept large flash-based drives, but there is no doubt others are and that they are coming. This is just the first announcement in a long string, I'm sure. But this sort of device is coming.
Note that they didn't mention price at all.
Jack
Sunday, January 06, 2008
McAfee throws some FUD at the GPL
It seems McAfee is like some other companies and confuse software licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL) with software in the public domain. There is a world of difference. It also seems as though McAfee appropriated some of this code and is now being held to the terms of the GPL, which require someone who distributes such software to return any improvements or changes they made to the code to the community and to publish the source code. (The two are usually one and the same.) The company is just now getting around to admitting this and, seeing as they are legally bound to the terms of the GPL (no matter they say it has not been tested in court, which is a widely held assumption and totally false) they've thought to disparage the license with that and other falsehoods.
This is a quick read and about as funny as it gets.
Jack
OnComputers Radio show Podcast 01-06-08
Links from the Gregg Zone!
1) I thought I would do a little bit on predictions after all this is the first show of the New Year. Let us start it off with a little humor with a geek bent. Enough said it is a short video clip, there are a lot more there but this on is predictions for 2008. http://www.allanjosephbatac.com
2) Next up, here are the top ten predictions from a stock market guru on the likely trends for the up coming year. Sort of wish I had something to invest in other than an hour at the casino, okay maybe a half hour. Any way this is just one of several I read through, I am just interested in the expected trends. http://seekingalpha.com
3) This one is a look back at last years C.E.S. show and how well the predictions of the show booth people came out interesting. http://www.itworld.com
4) Okay enough of that how about scientist finding alien DNA in humans here is a very interesting article about it. This one made me say hummm maybe, sounds good to me, why not. We had to come from somewhere why not the cosmos, seems we had to originate there, the only question is how we wound up here. http://ancientx.com
5) The other evening I was sitting here shooting the bull with Riley, we were toying with several subjects when one of our topics reminded me of something I wanted to look into. Several months ago, I was going to take a bus trip to