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Dear Visitors,
I am going to be sitting for a large number of exams, which will keep me busy
from updating the website for quite a while.
The website will not be updated until 27th of January 2009.
Sorry for any inconvenience,
Techjunkeez Webmaster
9th of December 2008
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Top Tech Story of the Day
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Facebook Virus Turns Your
Computer into a Zombie |
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 Hey, I have this hilarious video of you dancing. Your face is so
red. You should check it out.
If you've received a message like that through Facebook or MySpace,
you may have been exposed to the "Koobface" virus. "Koobface" comes through an
e-mail sent by one of your social networking site friends inviting you to scope
out a video.
Once the URL is clicked, "Koobface" prompts you to update your
Flash player before the video can be displayed. Therein lies the virus, cloaked
in a "flash_player.exe" file. According to the Kaspersky Lab, an antivirus
organization working closely with Facebook, "the worms transform victim machines
into zombie computers to form botnets."
The McAfee Security Blog explains that when "Koobface" infects
your computer, it prompts a downloaded service named Security Accounts Manager (SamSs)
to load on start-up. SamSs then proxies all HTTP traffic, stealing results from
popular search engines and hijacking them to lesser-known search sites.
Read more... |
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Latest Tech News Headlines
 Microsoft Plans Eight
Security Bulletins for Patch Tuesday |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Microsoft is prepping eight bulletins for next week to address
security issues in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Excel, Word and other
applications. Six of the bulletins are rated “critical,” while two others are
rated “important.”
Microsoft is planning to release six critical security bulletins
as part of this month’s Patch Tuesday.
In addition to the critical bulletins, there are two others rated
“important” slated to make this month’s round of fixes as well. The critical
bulletins cover remote code execution issues in Microsoft Excel, Internet
Explorer, Word, Visual Basic and Windows. One of the Windows bulletins affects
Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Server 2008. The other affects
only Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.
The IE bulletin affects multiple versions of the browser,
including version 7. The Excel, Word and Visual Basic bulletins also affect
multiple versions of those applications.
The bulletins rated “important” plug security holes in SharePoint
and Windows Media Center. The SharePoint bulletin fixes at least one privilege
escalation issue, while the Windows Media Center bulletin is focused on remote
code execution.
Read more... |
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Apple: 300 million
iPhone apps downloaded |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Apple on Friday said 300 million iPhone apps have been downloaded
from its App Store since it opened in July.
The news comes in the form of two ads placed in the Wall Street
Journal and the New York Times. The ads highlight some of the applications
available for the iPhone, but the print on the bottom of the ads reveal some
new, previously unreleased, information.
In addition to the 300 million apps download, Apple also confirms
that the App Store also passed the 10,000 app mark in the store.
The App Store opened almost five months ago on July 11, 2008 with
500 apps available for download. As of the last earnings announcement, Apple
reported 200 million downloads of its then 5,500 apps.
Read more... |
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Britain seizes
"dangerous" fake game consoles |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
British customs officials issued a pre-Christmas warning on Friday
after seizing fake Nintendo game consoles with potentially dangerous power
adaptors.
"At best these consoles would have led to disappointment on
Christmas morning. At worst they could have caused serious harm or injury," said
Pamela Rogers, from HM Revenue and Customs.
The products, versions of Nintendo DS and DS Lite which had been
bought from websites mainly based in Asia, cost about 40 pounds (58 dollars)
instead of the usual 100 pounds.
Rogers warned people to take care when buying such goods online,
saying they should use reputable or regulated sites.
"We are asking all concerned parents to be diligent -- when a
bargain seems too good to be true, it often is," said Mike Rawlinson, managing
director of Nintendo's fraud investigation company ELSPA.
Read more... |
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Google Dodged
Antitrust Charges By Three Hours |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
The proposed advertising pact between Google and Yahoo came under
fire almost immediately after it was announced. But Wednesday Sanford Litvack, a
consultant for the Department of Justice's antitrust division, confirmed that
Google pulled the plug on the proposed ad deal a scant three hours before the
Department of Justice was going to file a claim.
Speaking to the AM LawDaily, Litvack confirmed that the Department
of Justice was preparing to pursue legal action against Google.
"We were going to file the complaint at a certain time during the
day," Litvack said. "We told them we were going to file the complaint at that
time of day. Three hours before, they told us they were abandoning the
agreement."
The complaint was never filed. But had it been, Litvack said the
proposed ad merger between Google and Yahoo would have violated Sections 1 and 2
of the Sherman Act. Section 1 of the Sherman Act makes it illegal to restrain
trade unreasonably; Section 2 makes it illegal for a company to monopolize or
attempt to form a monopoly.
Read more... |
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Microsoft Gearing Up
for Vista SP2, First Beta Now Available |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
A new beta preview of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 is now
available for testing. Vista has proved something of a disaster for Microsoft,
but the company is slowly fixing many of the issues that users have reported.
Service Pack 1 was unquestionably a step up from the initial
release and, judging by the features set to land in SP2, the Vista experience
is, if not exactly a "wow," at least looking up.
While SP 2 won't arrive in final form until April 2009 (possibly
later, Microsoft hasn't confirmed a date yet, preferring to wait on feedback
from the new beta), the beta release offers a glimpse of what's to come.
Among the improvements are a less resource-hogging Sidebar, a
better wifi connection dialog, Blu-Ray support, better third-party hardware
support and more.
One thing to note if you're thinking of trying the beta —
upgrading to the final release will require uninstalling the beta. Also note
that, in an effort to reduce download sizes, SP1 must be installed before you
upgrade to SP2 beta (that will also be true for the final release version of
SP2).
Read more... |
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Google Friend Connect
Makes Official Debut |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
On the same afternoon that Facebook Connect officially launched,
Google also made publicly available its similiar Friend Connect venture.
Google Friend Connect, which lets webmasters add Google social
features like chat to their Web sites with just a few clicks, was first
introduced in May and has since been in a closed beta.
MySpace also has a similar servce, dubbed Data Availability.
Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect both let users interact
with friends while browsing third-party Web sites, but there are differences.
Google's service is more open, relying on the open-source OpenID
identity management system, which is also supported by Yahoo, AOL, and
Microsoft. Also, when web developers enable their sites for Google Friend
Connect, the sites will be able to take advantage of OpenSocial web gadgets,
such as message boards and rating and reviewing gadgets.
The idea of co-browsing is not a new one. Very early on in the
Internet era a number of companies tried appealing to consumers with the
feature, but it never gained enough traction among users.
Read more... |
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Opera 10 alpha 1
released, brings Acid3 victory |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Opera announced Thursday the availability of the first alpha
release of Opera 10, the next major version of the company's web browser. The
new version, which is built on Opera's Presto 2.2 rendering engine, includes
some significant improvements to rendering and standards compliance.
This release expands Opera's native support for CSS3 and HTML5.
One particularly nice feature that has been introduced in this release is
support for RGBA colors in CSS, which makes it possible to describe colors with
a translucent alpha channel. This feature, which is already supported in Safari
and Firefox 3, facilitates some nice styling effects. Unlike the CSS opacity
property, which is applied on top of content areas as a filter, the RGBA color
feature is a lot more flexible and can be used, for example, to do transparent
backgrounds.
Read more... |
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Symbian Foundation
Readies Open Source Mobile Platform |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Last summer, Nokia said it was buying the remaining stock in
Symbian with plans to turn it into a royalty-free mobile operating system. The
new Symbian Foundation now says it will have a preliminary version for review in
the first half of 2009 and to have distributions available under the Eclipse
Public License by June 2010.
The new Symbian Foundation Initiative welcomed six new members
Dec. 4 and promised to have a preliminary version of its royalty-free mobile
operating system ready for review in the first half of 2009 and to have
distributions available under the Eclipse Public License by June 2010.
Nokia, the global leader in mobile handset sales, announced June
24 it was acquiring the remaining 52 million shares it does not already own of
Symbian for $410 million. At the same time, Nokia and other mobile industry
leaders announced the formation of the Symbian Foundation with membership open
to all organizations.
Under the arrangement, Nokia will contribute the Symbian OS and
S60 software to the foundation while Sony Ericsson, Motorola, DoCoMo, UIQ
Technology and Fujitsu adding additional technology to the foundation's
intellectual property pool.
Read more... |
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Verizon
expected to release firmware update for BlackBerry Storm |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
The RIM BlackBerry Storm has been out for about two weeks now, and
the reviews of the first touch-screen BlackBerry have been mixed, skewing
slightly more on the negative side. While the touch screen and features list get
a thumbs up, there have been numerous complaints about the sluggish performance
(check out the CNET user reviews for a sampling), but it looks like there might
be a fix coming soon.
Verizon Wireless is expected to release a firmware update 4.7.0.75
for the BlackBerry Storm, though there's a bit of confusion as to the exact
release date. Engadget Mobile reports that the official release will come on
Saturday, while the Boy Genius Report says it could come as early as Friday
afternoon. BGR actually got its hands on the update early and said it improved
some issues, such as better accelerometer performance (switching from portrait
to landscape mode) and improved battery life, while other problems remained and
new ones cropped up. You can read more about BGR's experience here.
We'll keep you updated on the official release, but if any
BlackBerry Storm users have already found and tried out the firmware update,
we'd love to hear about your experience.
Read more... |
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Harrison: Sony
"Brilliantly Realized" Their Home Ambitions |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
You might think that, depending on the condition of their
separation, Phil Harrison may hold a small grudge against Sony. The former
executive is now president of Atari, and some guys are reluctant to talk about
their former employer.
But according to a recent Eurogamer interview, Harrison says Sony
is definitely on the right track with PlayStation Home; he believes the company
has "brilliantly realized their ambitions." Of course, this project was
initially conceived when Harrison was still running things at SCEE, so perhaps
this revelation isn't exactly surprising, but it's still good news. He clearly
likes how things are shaping up, and has said he's part of the Home beta. In
turn, he think Sony "will have a very successful platform," and re-confirmed
Sony's earlier statements that insisted on an open beta launch before 2008 is
over. At the same time, Harrison had some kind words for the recently updated
Microsoft Xbox 360 dashboard, even though he says they're still only "scratching
the surface" of what the industry and gamers have come to expect in the realm of
customization and socialization. Everyone seems more expectant and demanding
than ever this generation!
Read more... |
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Kindle Sold Out
Until February |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
This holiday season may have a dearth of options, and the current
economic disaster is not be the only thing to blame. Right after an analyst
decreed Apple's iPod to be in short supply this season, Amazon's Kindle eBook
reader disappeared from shelves and will not be available until February of next
year.
The Kindle has been out for a year, and has been enormously
popular, so its vanishing makes a degree of sense. But one would figure Amazon
understood the demand for its product and would stockpile appropriately.
Another theory is that Amazon might be making room for the updated
Kindle 2.0, which was revealed in snippets earlier this year. Even though Amazon
stated the Kindle 2.0 would not be released in 2008, the early photos and
detailed specs made it clear that the company would have to vanquish its Kindle
1.0 stock to make room.
Meanwhile, shoppers for the eBook reader are out of luck. Unless,
of course, you're willing to brave eBay's price gouging.
Read more... |
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Techmeme Goes Cyborg,
Hires Human |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
Techmeme, a popular tech news-aggregator site, is bringing aboard
a human editor to help its automated system locate, organize, and rank breaking
news stories. Since its launch in 2005, Techmeme has relied on an algorithm to
do the job, sometimes with strange results. In a post yesterday titled "Guess
what? Automated news doesn't quite work," site founder Gabe Rivera gave an
example of the shortcomings of automation: Techmeme's sister site WeSmirch,
which links to celebrity news, last year featured stories about "Anna Nicole
Smith's hospitalization after she's already been declared dead," he writes.
The human editor, better known as tech journalist Megan McCarthy,
will work to improve Techmeme's ever-changing selection of headlines. "Obsolete
stories will be eliminated sooner while breaking stories will be expedited,"
Rivera explains.
Not everyone agrees, however. TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington
calls the change a "slippery slope," adding that a human editor makes Techmeme
subjective and "completely destroys" the site's "objective nature."
Read more... |
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Google Reader Revamp
Enables Speedier Feed Reading |
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Tech Junkeez Latest Tech News
I love it when a Web service provider triggers redesigns and tells
us they're more attractive than what they were offering before. Rarely does
anyone find that to be the case right off the bat; it generally takes us users a
day or two to absorb layout changes.
Yet here is Google, telling me that it has replaced old rounded
corners, drop shadows and heavily saturated colors" with a "softer palette,
faster components and a fresh new look" for Google Reader, my go-to RSS feed
reader application.
In truth, the revamped aesthetics don't do much to please my eye,
but they do seem to be executing on their function; Google Reader is a fraction
of a second or two faster, so I say mission accomplished. The smaller text
throughout seems to work. I'm digging it.
Another new alleged perk is the ability to hide unread counts.
Eek! As a journalist who checks the Reader morning, noon and night, I wouldn't
dream of this. But who knows, it may come in handy for vacation times.
Yes, the unread highlights do feel like a to-do list, but they're
completely necessary for me to keep up with the TechCrunchs, ReadWriteWebs and
the ATDs, et al.
Read more... |
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