2522 + Interview Questions in Computer News in Other Page 28 InterviewSolution

1351.	Solve : 5 Ways Your Computer Use Can Get You Fired!!?
Answer» I've seen a lot of people ask what the ''boss'' can see, Here is what the boss will do once he ''has '' seen. 5 Ways Your Computer Use Can Get You Fired by Liz Wolgemuth, U.S. News & World Report It's essential for some jobs, handy for most, but don't be fooled -- the personal computer can be a job ender. Even as you read this story, you should probably be asking yourself: Am I actually allowed to browse online and read news stories at the office? The parameters for computer use at work (and even at home) are often confusing. We communicate, network, WATCH our TV shows, do our grocery shopping, and get our news on our computers. But it's no free-for-all. Employees should know exactly what their employer's policies are for email and Internet usage, because workers are losing their jobs after computer-based missteps. Here are five ways to log on and lose your job: 1. Blog it up. Blogger Chez Pazienza worked as a producer at CNN's "American Morning" until mid-February, when Pazienza says his boss informed him that the company discovered his name attached to blog posts written without CNN's approval. Pazienza was fired soon after. Pazienza runs Deus Ex Malcontent, where he writes about Oprah and President BUSH with equal abandon. He hadn't identified himself as a CNN employee on the blog, but CNN spokeswoman Barbara Levin says company policy is that employees must first get permission to write for a non-CNN outlet. Levin didn't elaborate, noting that the company does not comment on personnel matters. There's even a term for being fired because of a blog -- it's called being "dooced." While some blogging advocates say a well-executed blog can boost your career by presenting your best side to the HR executives Googling you, there are limitations. Dooce.com founder Heather Armstrong writes on her site that she lost her job a year after beginning the blog for writing entries that involved colleagues. She now tells site visitors, "Be ye not so stupid" and offers parameters for safe blogging: "Never write about work on the Internet unless your boss knows and sanctions the fact that you are writing about work on the Internet." 2. Play away. Solitaire, that ever seductive way to while away the hours, is probably not a great choice for the workplace. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg caught sight of a solitaire game on a city employee's computer screen in 2006 and fired him. "I expect all city workers, including myself, to work hard," Bloomberg said then. Richard Bayer, an economist and chief operating officer of the Five O'Clock Club, an outplacement and career coaching organization, says employees who use a company computer for personal matters on company time -- whether playing solitaire or checking on their 401(k)'s -- are essentially stealing from their employer. "It's a new, 21st-century form of theft," Bayer says, adding that a couple of personal emails each day are within reason. 3. Look at pics. Yes, those kind of pics. Think about this: Nearly one-third of bosses have fired workers for misusing the Internet, according to a recent study by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute. Eighty-four percent of those employers said the reason was the viewing, downloading, or uploading of inappropriate or offensive content. The Washington, D.C., city government recommended the termination of nine employees in January for allegedly looking at pornography sites at work. The key here is privacy -- as in, tell yourself you have none. The computer system belongs to the company, and courts have consistently sided with employers when it comes to computer-related terminations, says Nancy Flynn, executive director of the ePolicy Institute. 4. Post your pics. Social networking may quickly gain an AIR of formality. The mayor of tiny Arlington, Ore. (population nearly 500), grabbed headlines recently after she was recalled by voters. Among other issues, the residents were sharply divided over the propriety of photos of the mayor dressed in her underwear that were posted to her MySpace page. Employers are beginning to monitor social networking sites, Flynn says. Not only do companies fear employees posting proprietary information, but they also don't want to find photos of the boss dancing on the table drunk at the holiday party. Opinions posted that run contrary to company values can also get employees into trouble. 5. Write R-rated emails. More than a quarter of employers have sent an employee packing for email-related offenses, according to the American Management Association/ePolicy Institute survey, and 62 percent of those said it was for inappropriate or offensive language. When you write, just assume that someone inside the company is reading it. Most of the 43 percent of companies that monitor email do it automatically, but 40 percent have live human beings reading and REVIEWING it. Employers largely are concerned with their legal liability, Flynn says, noting that a growing number of companies are choosing to archive electronically stored information, rather than erase it, and it's subject to discovery in a federal lawsuit. Good reminders, Ivy. Thank you. Interesting, how these "educated" people (at least in some cases) don't stop to THINK about what they're doing...Playing Solitaire when the boss (the mayor) is in the office! Duh! Quote from: Aegis on APRIL 08, 2008, 03:02:01 PM Good reminders, Ivy. Thank you. Interesting, how these "educated" people (at least in some cases) don't stop to THINK about what they're doing... It must be so hard to resist the temptation!!! Yeah, can be hard to resist, but you really have no privacy at work.well privacy at work. huh? do the work first then you can do a little of solitaire..

1351.

Solve : 5 Ways Your Computer Use Can Get You Fired!!?

Answer»

I've seen a lot of people ask what the ''boss'' can see, Here is what the boss will do once he ''has '' seen.

5 Ways Your Computer Use Can Get You Fired

by Liz Wolgemuth, U.S. News & World Report

It's essential for some jobs, handy for most, but don't be fooled -- the personal computer can be a job ender. Even as you read this story, you should probably be asking yourself: Am I actually allowed to browse online and read news stories at the office?

The parameters for computer use at work (and even at home) are often confusing. We communicate, network, WATCH our TV shows, do our grocery shopping, and get our news on our computers. But it's no free-for-all. Employees should know exactly what their employer's policies are for email and Internet usage, because workers are losing their jobs after computer-based missteps. Here are five ways to log on and lose your job:

1. Blog it up.

Blogger Chez Pazienza worked as a producer at CNN's "American Morning" until mid-February, when Pazienza says his boss informed him that the company discovered his name attached to blog posts written without CNN's approval. Pazienza was fired soon after. Pazienza runs Deus Ex Malcontent, where he writes about Oprah and President BUSH with equal abandon. He hadn't identified himself as a CNN employee on the blog, but CNN spokeswoman Barbara Levin says company policy is that employees must first get permission to write for a non-CNN outlet. Levin didn't elaborate, noting that the company does not comment on personnel matters.

There's even a term for being fired because of a blog -- it's called being "dooced." While some blogging advocates say a well-executed blog can boost your career by presenting your best side to the HR executives Googling you, there are limitations. Dooce.com founder Heather Armstrong writes on her site that she lost her job a year after beginning the blog for writing entries that involved colleagues. She now tells site visitors, "Be ye not so stupid" and offers parameters for safe blogging: "Never write about work on the Internet unless your boss knows and sanctions the fact that you are writing about work on the Internet."

2. Play away.

Solitaire, that ever seductive way to while away the hours, is probably not a great choice for the workplace. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg caught sight of a solitaire game on a city employee's computer screen in 2006 and fired him. "I expect all city workers, including myself, to work hard," Bloomberg said then.

Richard Bayer, an economist and chief operating officer of the Five O'Clock Club, an outplacement and career coaching organization, says employees who use a company computer for personal matters on company time -- whether playing solitaire or checking on their 401(k)'s -- are essentially stealing from their employer.

"It's a new, 21st-century form of theft," Bayer says, adding that a couple of personal emails each day are within reason.

3. Look at pics.

Yes, those kind of pics. Think about this: Nearly one-third of bosses have fired workers for misusing the Internet, according to a recent study by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute. Eighty-four percent of those employers said the reason was the viewing, downloading, or uploading of inappropriate or offensive content. The Washington, D.C., city government recommended the termination of nine employees in January for allegedly looking at pornography sites at work.

The key here is privacy -- as in, tell yourself you have none. The computer system belongs to the company, and courts have consistently sided with employers when it comes to computer-related terminations, says Nancy Flynn, executive director of the ePolicy Institute.

4. Post your pics.

Social networking may quickly gain an AIR of formality. The mayor of tiny Arlington, Ore. (population nearly 500), grabbed headlines recently after she was recalled by voters. Among other issues, the residents were sharply divided over the propriety of photos of the mayor dressed in her underwear that were posted to her MySpace page.

Employers are beginning to monitor social networking sites, Flynn says. Not only do companies fear employees posting proprietary information, but they also don't want to find photos of the boss dancing on the table drunk at the holiday party. Opinions posted that run contrary to company values can also get employees into trouble.

5. Write R-rated emails.

More than a quarter of employers have sent an employee packing for email-related offenses, according to the American Management Association/ePolicy Institute survey, and 62 percent of those said it was for inappropriate or offensive language. When you write, just assume that someone inside the company is reading it. Most of the 43 percent of companies that monitor email do it automatically, but 40 percent have live human beings reading and REVIEWING it.

Employers largely are concerned with their legal liability, Flynn says, noting that a growing number of companies are choosing to archive electronically stored information, rather than erase it, and it's subject to discovery in a federal lawsuit.

Good reminders, Ivy. Thank you.

Interesting, how these "educated" people (at least in some cases) don't stop to THINK about what they're doing...Playing Solitaire when the boss (the mayor) is in the office! Duh!
Quote from: Aegis on APRIL 08, 2008, 03:02:01 PM

Good reminders, Ivy. Thank you.

Interesting, how these "educated" people (at least in some cases) don't stop to THINK about what they're doing...

It must be so hard to resist the temptation!!! Yeah, can be hard to resist, but you really have no privacy at work.well privacy at work. huh? do the work first then you can do a little of solitaire..

1352.	Solve : Windows 7 in 2009 - Denied?
Answer» HERE Microsoft has moved to deny rumours started by outgoing chairman Bill Gates last week that the replacement for Vista could be here by as early as NEXT year. Speaking at a corporate philanthropy seminar last week, Gates SUGGESTED that Windows 7 would be released “sometime in the next year or so”. Given that Microsoft’s official policy is for its OS products to be given a three-year life cycle and that Vista was only launched at the start of 2007, a 2009 release for its successor would have meant a 12-month reduction in shelf life. Early builds of Windows 7 However, in an email to Information Week, Microsoft has clarified the company’s position with a firm rebuttal of the 2009 rumour: "We are currently in the PLANNING stages for Windows 7 and development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista Consumer" a Microsoft representative said. The spokesperson then went on to explain that Gates’ gaff could well be down to the FACT that Microsoft tends to TRIAL beta versions of new OS products before releasing a full consumer package: "As is standard with the release of a new product, we will be releasing early builds of Windows 7 prior to its general availability as a means to gain tester feedback," the spokesman said. Well, that’s that then. We’ve been told.Quote “sometime in the next year or so”. Mr. Gates' philanthropic activities aside, by now people should realize that this is Microsoft - speak for "within this decade."

1353.	Solve : Class Action Lawsuit Against the RIAA Claims Extortion and Racketeering?
Answer» HERE For years people have claimed that the RIAA has been using extortion and racketeering methods in the witch-hunt-like way that it has gone after people whom it claims have downloaded music illegally - “defendants” who include children, people who don’t own computers, and even dead people (downloading from the afterlife requires a heck of a strong wifi signal!) Now, an extraordinarily courageous woman, Tanya Andersen, of Beaverton, OR, has had enough of the three years of intimidation she and her young daughter have been subjected to by the RIAA and its partners. Tired of the baseless accusations leveled against her, the intimidation, and the increasing threat of financial ruin, Ms. Andersen fought back, filing last week an amended complaint in her class action, DETAILING some of the RIAA abuses. If these allegations are found correct, the RIAA and their agents MediaSentry and Settlement Support Center planned and executed nothing less than an elaborate protection racket, conducting illegal investigations and computer searches, filing sham lawsuits and using threats of financial ruin to intimidate individuals into settling, even when they are innocent. (PERHAPS this was their business plan for how to recoupe the losses which they feared a move to an Internet-based model of music distribution was going to wreak on their bloated coffers, as more and more artists go independent rather than being chewed up and spat out by the machinery of the RIAA’s largest houses - a machine well-oiled by the blood, sweat and tears of those artists.) But back to Ms. Andersen’s class action lawsuit against the RIAA. Imagine yourself standing in the kitchen one morning, sipping orange JUICE and waiting for the coffee machine to finish percolating. Going through your mail you find a letter from a law firm, telling you that you’ve been caught downloading copyrighted music from the Internet; that the evidence establishing your unquestionable guilt has already been secured; and that you have 10 days to contact the “Settlement Support Center” to make reparations for your unpardonable actions; and, finally, if you fail to pay the defined amount - which could be hundreds of thousands of dollars - to make good your breach of copyright, a federal law suit will be filed against you. Wouldn’t that shake the last remnants of sleep out of your head? An estimated 30,000 of these lawsuits have been filed, and many more people have received such letters, in the RIAA’s attempts to retain for the Big 4 record companies (Atlantic, EMI, BMG and Universal) their dominant positions as manufacturers and distributors of recorded music. [On a side note, over at P2Pnet they have published an email from someone who claims to have discovered who is behind the “Settlement Support Center” that has been playing the role of strong-arm enforcer for the RIAA all these years. According to the email outing the RIAA’s Settlement Support Center published by P2Pnet, the group behind the RIAA’s Settlement Support Center is really a company called the PSC Group. The PSC Group claims that they are “a professional services consulting firm that helps companies withstand the challenges of change. We specialize in the development of solutions that help our clients achieve their strategic business objectives.” The PSC group is headed by CEO Andrew Lauter who, claims PSC, “is best known for his ability to ’size up’ a business problem, ‘demystify’ the new technologies, and to help companies take advantage of today’s business solutions.”] Anyways, Ms. Andersen received one of these letters from the RIAA’s “Settlement Support Center”, delivered by a process server almost three long years ago. Only in her case, she was the victim of mistaken identity. When she provided details of the person with whom she had been confused, and offered up her hard drive for FORENSIC analysis, the response was an elevated level of intimidation, including attempts to harass Ms. Andersen’s 10-year-old daughter by directly contacting her at their home and at her school. Finally, after a relentless two-year barrage of abuse, the record companies dismissed their case in June 2007. In January 2008 Ms. Andersen was granted the attorney’s fees she’d paid in her defense. Successfully clearing her name has not come easy; the financial cost can be recouped, but the emotional cost cannot. And for the dead people who have been sued, those who do not own a computer who have been sued, the children who have been sued, conducting a successful defense is a much more difficult or impossible proposition. A senior RIAA spokesperson once said “when you fish with a drift-net, you’re going to catch a few dolphins.” May we point out to the RIAA that this practice is universally reviled, and that line-fishing is now the norm, thanks to the backing of the courts and the public outcry at the harm to innocents. We applaud Ms. Andersen, an innocent and brave dolphin, and hope that her class action will cause the whole truth about the methods and actions of the RIAA and their agents to be laid bare. So, finally, if you receive one of these letters while sipping your morning orange juice, what should you do? Well, we won’t presume to know your exact situation and TENDER advice, so you should seek counsel for yourself. We’re reminded, though, of black-suited and white-tied men in patent leather shoes, speaking with marbles in their mouths, and offering protection. “Protection from what?” you ask. Why, protection from black-suited and white-tied men, of course.Quote from: Broni on April 08, 2008, 04:58:48 PM (Perhaps this was their business plan for how to recoupe the losses which they feared a move to an Internet-based model of music distribution was going to wreak on their bloated coffers, as more and more artists go independent rather than being chewed up and spat out by the machinery of the RIAA’s largest houses - a machine well-oiled by the blood, sweat and tears of those artists.) Wow... vivid imagery there. Always thought that the way they did things was dirty. With the widespread amount of piracy out there, it seems they thought they could stick a finger in a phonebook at random and sue them. Well done to that woman, took a lot of courage to speak up.I'm not suprised at their tactics at all...It will be interesting to see what the justice department does with this...

1354.	Solve : AOL now in the mix with MS, Yahoo, Google?
Answer» http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/04/10/196224.shtml Quote "Even just since this morning, there's much to report in the ongoing fight between Microsoft and Yahoo!. After Yahoo! ANNOUNCED YESTERDAY that they are TESTING Google AdSense, Microsoft reacted with a comment pointing out that 'any DEFINITIVE agreement between Yahoo! and Google would CONSOLIDATE over 90% of the search advertising market in Google's hands.' Ironically, they complain that 'this would make the market far less competitive.' Both companies try to team up with strong partners, as well. Yahoo! and AOL are now closing in on a deal to combine their Internet operations. And of course, this morning's news was that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is apparently in talks for a joint bid for Yahoo!"

1358.	Solve : Gone in 2 Minutes: Mac Gets Hacked First in Contest?
Answer» HERE It MAY be the quickest $10,000 Charlie Miller ever earned. He took the first of THREE laptop computers -- and a $10,000 cash prize -- Thursday after breaking into a MacBook Air at the CanSecWest security conference's PWN 2 OWN hacking contest. Show organizers offered a Sony VAIO, Fujitsu U810 and the MacBook as prizes, saying that they could be won by anybody at the show who could find a way to hack into each of them and read the contents of a file on the system, using a previously undisclosed "0day" attack. Nobody was able to hack into the systems on the first day of the contest when contestants were only allowed to attack the computers over the network, but on Thursday the rules were relaxed so that attackers could direct contest organizers using the computers to do things like visit Web sites or open e-mail messages. Miller, best known as ONE of the researchers who first hacked Apple's iPhone last year, didn't take much time. Within 2 minutes, he directed the contest's organizers to visit a Web site that contained his exploit code, which then allowed him to seize control of the computer, as about 20 onlookers cheered him on. He was the first contestant to attempt an attack on any of the systems. Miller was quickly given a nondisclosure AGREEMENT to sign and he's not allowed to discuss particulars of his bug until the contest's sponsor, TippingPoint, can notify the vendor. Contest rules state that Miller could only take advantage of software that was preinstalled on the Mac, so the flaw he exploited must have been accessible, or possibly inside, Apple's Safari browser. Last year's contest winner, Dino Dai Zovi, exploited a vulnerability in QuickTime to take home the prize. Dai Zovi, who congratulated Miller after his hack, didn't participate in this year's contest, saying it was time for someone else to win. It actually was 2 minutes into the 2nd Day... P.S. Dao participated in successfully hacking a fully patched Vista machine the next day...so much for taking the year off !Quote It actually was 2 minutes into the 2nd Day...

1360.	Solve : Microsoft CEO sets deadline for Yahoo deal?
Answer» Yahoo Inc has three weeks to accept Microsoft Corp's $31-a-share cash-and-stock offer or Microsoft may lower its bid and TAKE its offer to Yahoo investors, Microsoft said on Saturday. Quote "If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors," Ballmer wrote. LinkOne-way bastiges... Take a company public, and the upside is the large infusion of capital...here to demonstrate the downside is Microsoft, for your edification. Nor would I EXPECT the Federal Communications Commission or the Federal Trade Commission to oppose this, either -- they haven't been on the side of consumers for more than twenty years...but I digress... Yahoo's response - In short: Make bigger offer. Well, yeah, that was also in the back of my feeble brain (make a larger offer) but it got lost in my mini-rant. But, hey, why make a larger offer if you can appeal directly to the shareholders and hope they get greedy... If Microsoft really wants Yahoo that badly, they need to leverage their synergies for a win/win outcome. (There -- some management speak for you -- now, where's my golden parachute? [Preferably, the one without the gaping hole.])MS will win by proxy...the current Board of Yahoo will still get paid in their buyout. They are standing pat for a reason and it's $ $Yeah I have a feeling based off other articles I've read that the investors want this to go through so they'll definitely win by proxy / hostile takeover.Kinda stupid as the final offer stands though...had the investors fired their own board at the highest offer which was around 7 months ago it would've been worth another 20 bucks a share... Greed doesn't always overcome STUPIDITY it seems...Yeah, but if Microsoft is so great, why does this have to be on a hostile basis? I KNOW I'm sounding like someone who (famously) asked, Why can't we all just get along?See above Post...

1361.	Solve : Viruses Expected to Hit 1 Million This Year?
Answer» The TOTAL number of viruses will reach one million by year's end, according to security experts. Malware writers have been forced to create new types of viruses and exploits more regularly as businesses and individuals improve security practices, the experts said. Sophos chief technology officer Paul Ducklin said about 25 percent of UNIQUE malware has been created in the last six months of its 20 year history. Linkevilfantasy! Get ready!Quote "About 85 to 90 percent of malware families have a FIX created for them almost immediately," Ducklin said. They're called AUTOMATIC updates people. Use them!!!!!

1363.	Solve : Every Click You Make?
Answer» ARTICLE is pretty long but an interesting read about ISPs harvesting your data. -- The online behavior of a small but growing number of computer users in the United States is MONITORED by their Internet service providers, who have access to every click and KEYSTROKE that comes down the line. The companies harvest the stream of data for clues to a person's interests, making money from advertisers who use the information to target their online pitches. The practice represents a significant expansion in the ability to track a household's Web use because it TAPS into Internet connections, and critics liken it to a phone company listening in on conversations. But the companies involved say customers' privacy is protected because no personally identifying details are RELEASED. ... Link

1364.	Solve : Windows XP SP3 due next month?
Answer» March 24, 2008 (Computerworld) Microsoft Corp. will release Windows XP Service Pack 3 during the second half of April, according to a report from a Web site that has correctly predicted recent Windows ship dates. TechARP.com, a Malaysian Web site that nailed Vista SP1's release-to-manufacturing (RTM) date last month as well as its release to Windows Update last week, said that Microsoft will wrap up work on XP's third and final service pack next month. The site pegged RTM for Windows XP SP3 as "second half of April 2008" for seven languages, with a follow-on RTM of the remaining supported languages "approximately 21 days" later. By TechARP's account, Microsoft will first finish work on the Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish versions of the service pack. Microsoft declined comment, other than to repeat an earlier statement about the service pack's timing. "We are targeting 1H [first half] 2008 for the release of XP SP3 RTM, though our timing will always be based on customer feedback as a first priority," a spokeswoman said in an e-mail. The last time Microsoft made a public move with Windows XP SP3 was a little over a month ago, when it posted a second release candidate to Windows Update. About two weeks ago, however, XP SP3 caused a minor stir when what was purportedly the newest build leaked to the Internet and hit BitTorrent search sites such as The Pirate Bay. Although Microsoft initially refused comment, last week it acknowledged that the build -- designated 5503 -- was real and had been released to a portion of the invitation-only beta test group. It also warned users away from any download. "This build was not intended for public release and anyone who has that build and is not part of the private beta is working with bits that Microsoft can't verify," a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail last week. "It's possible the bits may have been modified with malware or other bad CODE that Microsoft hasn't tested." Multiple versions of XP SP3 build 5503, including English- and Russian-language editions, are available via BitTorrent. Once SP3 ships, the next major milestones for Windows XP are June 30, when the popular operating system is slated to fall off the reseller and retail availability list, and Jan. 31 2009, when it will be taken out of all distribution channels, including system builders. source: ComputerWorldCool. Hope they're able to KEEP with this date and although I'd LIKE to hope that it will go smoothly as well. I'm sure there will be issues.

1365.	Solve : After 38 years, a new type of memory to hit market?
Answer» It's been a long haul for phase change memory, but the goal is in sight. Numonyx, the memory joint VENTURE between STMicroelectronics and Intel, is already shipping samples of phase change memory (PCM) chips to customers and will start shipping PCM chips commercially later this year, CEO Brian Harrison SAID at a press conference Monday. Quote Why will the world want PCM? Performance, says Numonyx CTO Ed Doller. PCM chips can survive tens of millions of read-write cycles, he said, or far more than flash. Reading data to PCM chips takes 70 to 100 nanoseconds, or as fast as NOR flash. Data can be WRITTEN to the chips at a rate of 1 megabyte a second, or equivalent of NAND flash. There is also no erase CYCLE, making it similar to DRAM. In other words, you have the best attributes of three different types of memory--plus, PCM will potentially use far less power. Link These tech advances always are announced after you have shelled out $1600.00 for the newest BUILD on the market...Phase Change......There was something on this in the news last year or so...

1366.	Solve : Upcoming Microsoft Patches?
Answer» HERE Quote Microsoft Plans Five 'Critical' Security Updates For Windows, Explorer The fixes apply to Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008. By Paul McDougall InformationWeek April 3, 2008 03:27 PM Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) said Thursday that it plans to release eight software updates for the Windows operating system and Internet Explorer Web browser to patch security holes, five of which the company described as "critical." Microsoft said it plans to release the updates on April 8. PC users can determine if they need the updates by ACCESSING the company's online Baseline Security Analyzer, Microsoft said. The five critical updates are designed to ADDRESS security vulnerabilities that could leave Windows or Explorer open to remote code execution -- a technique used by hackers to gain control of a target computer. The updates apply to Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008, as well as Explorer. Users will need to restart their systems after installing the updates. Microsoft typically releases major security updates in the second week of each month. Microsoft also plans to patch TWO "important" vulnerabilities that leave Windows open to spoofing and unauthorized user privilege elevation, and a vulnerability that could expose Microsoft Office to remote code execution. The company said it plans to host a Webcast on April 9 to address user questions about the updates. Microsoft has set up an online registration form for the event. Microsoft also said it plans to release an updated version of the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool next week. The tool is designed to check for and remove malware programs such as Blaster, Sasser, and MyDoom. The updated tool can be obtained next week from the online Windows Update service, Windows Server Update SERVICES, or Microsoft's Download Center. Oh Joy.....it'll be a busy Forum month ! !

1368.	Solve : RSOE HAVARIA (world news events site)?
Answer» Thought this WOULD be APPROPRIATE in here for all the news junkies, although could also qualify as a off topic POSTS. HOWEVER, recently stumbled across this amazing news related page that SHOWS major news events all across the globe. http://visz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/

1370.	Solve : IBM says chips run faster with holes?
Answer» Company has harnessed a material that forms into a sieve-like structure NEW YORK - Computer chips, it seems, work better if they’re more like Swiss cheese than American cheese. Chips with minuscule holes in them can run faster or use less energy, IBM Corp. said in announcing Thursday a novel way to create them — potentially one of the most significant advances in chip manufacturing in years. To create these tiny holes, the computer company has harnessed a plastic-like material that spontaneously forms into a sieve-like structure. The holes have a width of 20 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, placing the METHOD in the much-vaunted field of nanotechnology. “To our knowledge, this is the first time anyone has used nanoscale self-assembled materials to build things that machines aren’t capable of doing,” said John Kelly, IBM’s vice president of development. Kelly said molecules in the material fall into a defined pattern similar to how snowflakes form into symmetrical six-sided shapes. IBM said the technology COULD be added to existing manufacturing lines and applied to current chips, boosting performance by 35 percent or cutting power consumption by the same percentage. It expects to start using the technique in 2009, first on chips used in IBM’s servers and later to chips it makes for other companies, including possibly the Cell processor used in Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3. “It’s a tremendous breakthrough,” said Richard Doherty, research director at Envisioneering Group, an analysis firm. “It’s likely to save energy and increase chip speeds more than any other single advance in the last few years.” The holes alleviate a problem that has loomed for the semiconductor industry: As chips have shrunk in size, boosting their speed and efficiency, they’ve increasingly become susceptible to electricity leaking between their closely spaced wires through the intervening insulator, usually glass. The most advanced chip technology in large-scale commercial use, which uses circuits 65 nanometers apart, loses almost half of its power to leakage, Doherty said. The leakage not only wastes power but also slows down the processor. Ideally, the glass would be replaced with VACUUM, a better insulator, but removing the glass AWAY in the right places hasn’t been possible with current techniques. If the glass was simply etched away, the resulting “ditches” running along the wires would simply be filled in by the next layer of insulating glass applied, according to IBM Fellow Dan Edelstein, chief scientist on the project. IBM’s polymer technique sidesteps that problem. First, the self-assembling material is applied on top of the glass, forming the tiny holes. The chip is then exposed to a gas that seeps through the material as if it were a stencil, etching away the underlying glass to form small holes in the top surface, and larger, continuous gaps between the wires. Another layer of glass is applied in a vacuum chamber. Because the holes in the topmost existing glass layer are small, the newly applied layer of glass doesn’t seep into the underlying cavities. Instead, it seals them off, with a vacuum inside. The technique was invented at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in SAN Jose, Calif., and the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, N.Y. It was adapted for commercial use by the University at Albany and IBM’s Semiconductor Research and Development Center in East Fishkill, N.Y. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18445742/I'm getting the drill out as we speak...Is anyone else craving swiss cheese?I've got a really big hole in one of my processors. It doesn't run faster though, actually, it doesn't run at all. Where the censored did I put my 20nm drill bit?

1373.	Solve : spybot and deskmates trojan?
Answer» http://www.spybot.info/en/news/2007-05-08.html

1374.	Solve : Review: Ubuntu Linux 7.04 Improves on Proven Formula?
Answer» With companies and individuals everywhere failing to find the wow in Windows Vista, Apple's OS X riding iPod sales and snarky commercials to steady growth, and long-time Microsoft partner Dell announcing plans to market a Linux desktop to the mainstream, it seems certain that the days of Microsoft's desktop monopoly are numbered. Granted, that number is probably a large one, but as evidenced by eWEEK Labs' tests of Ubuntu Linux 7.04, the state of the Linux desktop — not to mention that of other Windows alternatives — is too strong to hold off heterogeneity forever. Ubuntu Linux 7.04, which Dell has chosen to headline its desktop Linux foray, has made impressive strides toward claiming a spot on mainstream desktop and server machines, both by piling up advances made across the Linux and open-source community, and by building in advances of its own. • Click here for FOXNews.com's Personal Technology Center. For instance, we're glad to see that in Ubuntu 7.04 — also known as FEISTY Fawn — the NetworkManager application, which we like for the way it handles switching among wired and wireless networks and managing VPN connections, has gone from being an optional add-on to a part of the default install. As implemented in Feisty, however, NetworkManager boasts much improved handling of static connections, which earlier incarnations of NetworkManager didn't adequately address. Ubuntu's BEST features remain its excellent software management tools, its well-organized community and its large catalog of ready-to-install free software applications. We're also impressed with the steps that Ubuntu has taken to work with proprietary software, which, while more tricky to distribute, is in many cases what's needed to fit the bill. We installed the freely available (but not open-source) VMware Server on one of our test machines by browsing for and selecting it in Ubuntu's Add/Remove Applications tool. We did have to visit VMware's Web site to register and generate a serial number for the product, but we did not have to compile DRIVERS for our kernel — as we're accustomed to doing on other Linux platforms. Instead, Feisty's software management system pulled down the appropriate drivers for us, making it fast and easy for us to enable virtualization on our test machine. Ubuntu 7.04 is available in desktop and server flavors. The server variant is solid, but, aside from its suitability as a platform for VMware Server, Feisty doesn't do much to rise above the pack of other free Linux server operating system options. As a desktop option, Ubuntu 7.04 is an excellent fit, and is worthy of consideration as a Windows replacement. Most ISVs do still target Windows exclusively, and even though the Linux-supporting alternatives are getting better all the time, this is still a troublesome issue for potential migrators. Once users become acquainted with the Linux applications they require, however, it's much easier to install and update these applications on Ubuntu than it is on Windows. Ubuntu 7.04 is available for free download at www.ubuntu.com/products/GetUbuntu. In addition to the standard Live CD Ubuntu install disk, an alternative installation disk that features a text-mode version of the installer is available. The text-mode installer loads faster than the Live CD and offers expanded installation options, such as the ability to install Ubuntu in an LVM (logical volume manager) configuration. Feisty's Live CD install disk now ships with a interesting-looking migration tool that will attempt to find USER accounts and related data on the hard drives of machines slated for upgrade. We tried it out on a Windows XP Service Pack 2 instance we maintain in a virtual machine for running Windows software on our Linux clients, but the installer failed to find our user information. We think that Ubuntu's migration tool would be more useful if it were separable from the installation routine, and if we could run it directly on Windows machines. What's more, it might be worthwhile for the Ubuntu team to investigate whether it could co-opt Microsoft's own settings migration tool to ferry user data onto new Ubuntu installations. Ubuntu 7.04 is available for desktops and servers in x86, x86-64 and PowerPC versions. Ubuntu's server variant is also available for Sun Microsystems' UltraSPARC architecture. eWEEK Labs tested the x86-64 version of Ubuntu 7.04 on an Althon 64 workstation, and tested the x86 version on a Lenovo ThinkPad T41 and in a couple of VMs. We loaded up a VM with the previous Ubuntu release, version 6.10, and were impressed by the way that Ubuntu's built-in update manager notified us that a new version was available for upgrade. After a few clicks and about an hour of waiting for packages to download and install, we were up and running on Feisty. Our tests with the x86-64 version of Ubuntu went smoothly for the most part, but we'd like to see Ubuntu offer a 32-bit version of Firefox in its software repositories. Key plug-ins for the Web, such as Abobe's Flash player, are available only in 32-bit form, so users of 64-bit Ubuntu must turn to a matching version of the browser. We found instructions on Ubuntu's helpful user forums for installing 32-bit Firefox, but this should've been an option out of the box. As we mentioned above, Feisty comes preinstalled with a spruced-up NetworkManager, which satisfies the "network-roaming" goal that the project had designated as "essential" at the release blueprint hosted at blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty. The Ubuntu team set out three other essential goals, none of which made it into the 7.04 release. For two of those goals, the team had hoped to enable hardware acceleration by default in all graphics cards that supported it, and also enable by default snazzy composite desktop features where possible. The fact that accelerated graphics occasionally rely on proprietary hardware drivers and sometimes won't work at all forced the team to push back these goals to a later release. As with NetworkManager in previous Ubuntu releases, these eye candy options remain optional, which is fine by us. Another much more important but equally DEFERRED goal in Feisty is the so-called "bulletproof X" proposal, the need for which became clear after an Ubuntu driver update miscue last year that rendered some users' graphical interfaces unusable, and which required some command-line twiddling to repair. The idea behind bulletproof X is that in such a case, Ubuntu would step down to a failsafe graphics mode from which a user could visit the project's Web site and follow instructions to fix the issue. We were happy to find that Ubuntu now offers up a graphical interface for configuring the distribution's Xorg 7.2 X server — every popular distribution ships with such a tool, and we've long lamented the absence of one in Ubuntu. Ubuntu's display settings auto-detection generally works well, but without a graphical configuration tool, making changes to supported resolutions or setting up multimonitor configurations has required config file editing. The new tool, called displayconfig-gtk, is only a few months old at this point, and is not installed by default, but the tool worked well for us in tests. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,270778,00.html

1367.	Solve : Microsoft Extends XP Through 2010 for Ultra-Low-Cost Laptops?
Answer» Microsoft confirmed Thursday that it will extend the SALES of Windows XP HOME to OEMs beyond the current DEADLINE of June 30, 2008, to accommodate a new class of ultra-low-cost PCs (ULCPCs) that are just beginning to pepper the market. LinkThis is indeed good news...ASUS just started shipping their ultra-portable with XP.

1369.	Solve : MS might do something like PS3 Folding@home project?
Answer» http://www.gwn.com/news/story.php/id/12597/Microsoft_Considering_Foldinghome.html i know ILL install it on my 360Don't hold your breath...im not i know they dont like to do anything for freeFolding @ Home is a GOOD way of wasting even more energy. People will leave their Xbox and other devices on just to gain a higher RANKING even THOUGH such calculations should be done by supercomputers in a PROTECTED environment.. lol... i only let mine on my computer run when im on which is all day almost but still at night ifs off unless im doing scans or somethingWould make since, the PS3 is already doing this and it's a great cause.

1371.	Solve : google police?
Answer» http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2007/05/driveby_malware.phpNiceThis would DEFINITELY be a good idea, I heard about it a while back but haven't heard anything since.Google does NOT need to tell me where I can and can't go. I'm already severely pissed by those stupid 'This website could contain HARMFUL material, continue at your own risks' SPAMvertisements. Travel Here A google alternative that purges it's logged database everyday...HISTORY is not saved. That's what i LIKE about the web. There's always an alternative...very true

1372.	Solve : 'Critical' Patches this Patch Tuesday!?
Answer» 'Critical' Patches this Patch Tuesday! Techtree News Staff May 09 2007 Microsoft has released 7 security patches for the month of May that prominently include fixes for the DNS Server, Office, Internet Explorer, Exchange, and CAPICOM/BizTalk. All 7 security patches are rated 'critical,' and fix a total of 19 bugs. However, out of the 7, security experts say IT administrators NEED concentrate the most on MS07-026 and MS07-029 that fix flaws in Exchange and DNS (Domain Name System) server. The DNS vulnerability, which is present in Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003, is most critical, and is about a month old. There have been instances reported in the past weeks, wherein hackers have attempted to exploit this vulnerability and take control of the system. The Office fix plugs the vulnerability in various versions of Office, including 2000, 2007, XP, and 2004 for Mac. This is the most widespread vulnerability, wherein a MALICIOUSLY crafted drawing object activates arbitrary code. The Internet Explorer fix patches about 5 vulnerabilities in IE versions 5, 6, and 7, including Itanium and x64. The Exchange update fixes previously undisclosed flaws in Microsoft's messaging software that could be exploited to seize control over a server. The CAPICOM (Cryptographic API Component Object Model) update is relevant to BizTalk Server 2004, but not to 2000, 2002, or 2006. Meanwhile, Microsoft has advised customers to install these updates immediately. Users can install free updates through the Microsoft update Web site, or through automatic updates. http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Critical_Patches_this_Patch_Tuesday/551-80988-582.htmlDo I have to? It seems like a lot of work...and I don't use IE...lol just do an auto update and walk awayI've been wondering why this update is so big!cuz its full of spam lolMmm...beefy. (Yes, I realize that Spam isn't BEEF... Leave me alone.)lolHmm, thanks for the heads up. I'll go update now.

1375.	Solve : Yahoo scaling back not just photos, but auctions?
Answer» SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. has told users it will shut down its North American Web auction site, the second service the world's most visited Internet media company has set to retire in the past week. According to a message posted on the Yahoo AUCTIONS site at http://auctions.yahoo.com/, the service will no LONGER accept new auction lists from June 3. The last day to bid or buy goods and services on the auction site is June 16. Yahoo officials said last week they planned to shut down Yahoo Photos, its first-generation photo storage site, in June. They asked users to move to Yahoo's Web 2.0 photo sharing site, Flickr. The latest closure applies to Yahoo's U.S. and Canadian auction sites. Still open for business are Yahoo auction sites in three Asian markets -- Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. "After careful consideration, we have decided to close down our Yahoo US and Canada Auction sites to better serve our valued CUSTOMERS through other Yahoo properties," the U.S. auctions site told visitors on Tuesday. Yahoo continues to offering a range of U.S. e-commerce sites, including ones for shopping, auto sales, classified advertising and small business. On Friday, Jeff Weiner, executive vice president of Yahoo's Network Division, said in a company statement: "We are making great strides in our ongoing efforts to align Yahoo's resources and focus on core strategic priorities." A Yahoo spokesman was not immediately available to comment on whether the planned closing of the two sites was part of a broader plan to pare back slow-growing services. The closings have come to light in media reports rather than specific company announcements. According to audience measurement firm comScore Inc., online auction leader eBay Inc. accounted for more than 94 percent of online auctions activity among U.S. Web users last week. Online retail GIANT Amazon.com Inc.'s U.S. auction site accounted for one-third of a percentage point, while Yahoo's auctions held only an 0.2 percent share. "It comes with little surprise given Yahoo's advertising relationship with eBay, and eBay's massive dominance of the auction category," Hitwise research director LeeAnn Prescott wrote in a blog post. A year ago, eBay and Yahoo announced a strategic alliance to cooperate on a range of services in their core U.S markets. As of Friday, May 4, 2007 certain Yahoo auction features were discontinued. A limited set of customer service features and account tools will be available through October 29. http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN0820932920070509

1377.	Solve : Yahoo! Puts IM inside the Web (no more Downloads!!)?
Answer» GAIM portable is what I use on my flash drive and my PC. I NEVER liked Miranda, not sure why.I downloaded msn on my computer and just copied all the files to my flash drive and that MAKES it a portable messenger Not NECESSARILY.

1381.	Solve : Fingers-On: Hitachi's 7K1000 Terabyte Hard Drive?
Answer» And here I thought the best thing about Friday was going to be the planned Burritos 'n Biscuits run to our local TACO Bell/KFC hybrid. No, Hitachi's new TERABYTE hard drive takes the cake (or the empanada) for today. Quite literally the second the BOX hit my desk, I was already there with the scissors, ready to rush this little guy into the labs for benchmarking. Having survived the brief experience, the Deskstar 7K1000 emerged from our labs as a strong competitor -- speed-wise -- against all the other similarly configured drives we've tested. Pound-for-pound, the 7K1000 pulls in ever-so-slightly better a random access time than the next-closest hard drive in size, Seagate's 750GB Barracuda. Obviously, Western Digital's Raptor drive spanks the Deskstar like a... well... insert-your-favorite-spanking-related-metaphor-here. Still, that's almost comparing apples to oranges, considering the terabyte drive is over four times larger than the paltry 150GB Raptor. Against the 500GB drives we've tested, the Deskstar's random access speed is comparable to its lesser, 500GB model, and still faster than Samsung's SpinPoint T166 and Western Digital's trusty Caviar SE16. Jumping over to average read speeds, the five-platter 7K1000 rocks out a blazingly speedy 72.7 MB/s. Minus Western Digital's Raptor drive, that's the fastest of the most recent drives we've tested. And yes, that again includes the 750GB Seagate. And it's quite faster than Hitachi's 500GB Deskstar, which clocked in a mere 64.2 MB/s during our labs tests. All things considered -- including the price, $400! -- Hitchai's 7K1000 rocks. Absolutely rocks. It's speeds are certainly comparable, and in most cases better than, the current BATCH of similarly sized market leaders. And that's without even considering the big picture; you're getting a terabyte of storage. A terabyte. 1,000 gigabytes. And it's only $400? Seagate's 750GB Barracuda has an MSRP of $500. 'says it all, if you ask me! Brief Stats! Interface: SATA 3.0 Gb/s Disks/heads: 5/10 Data buffer: 32MB Rotational Speed: 7,200 RPM couple pics- looks like any normal internal hard drive http://www.maximumpc.com/article/fingers_on_hitachis_7k1000_terabyte_hard_drive (ps... excellent magazine by the way, not bad yearly price w/ included free software CD included with every months mag 29.00 us)...... That's pretty cool, I thought the drive was going to be a lot more than $400.I'd rather WAIT for WD, Seagate or Maxtor to come out with a drive like that. For the exact same reason I wouldn't buy a 10.000 RPM Toshiba HDD.. If they even made 'm, hehehe.

1382.	Solve : Nvidia unveils $830 GeForce 8800 Ultra graphics card?
Answer» The GPU is all that matters...In that case, this 8800 Ultra is perfect! LET's all buy four and USE Quad SLI, right now! OTHERWISE we'll never run Vista, and that's the only THING that matters! Wait, no it's not . . .

1383.	Solve : AMD's R600 DirX10 video card ? is this old news????
Answer» Part 2 Most complex PCB and the heaviest 3D card ever ATI'S R600 GPU features a number of innovations and improvements that are interesting, to say the LEAST. First of all, you need to know that this PCB (Printed Circuit Board) is the most expensive ONE that the graphics chip firm has ever ordered. It's a complex 12-layer monster with certain manufacturing novelties used in order to support the requirements of the R600 chip, most notably the 512-bit memory controller and the distribution of power to the components. The memory chips are arranged in a similar manner as on the G80, but each memory chip has its own 32-bit wide physical connection to the chip's RingBus memory interface. Memory bandwidth will therefore range from anywhere between 115 (GDDR3 at 8800GTX-style 900MHz in DDR mode - 1.8GHz) and 140.1GB/s (GDDR4 at 1.1GHz DDR, or 2.2GHz in marketingspeak). This will pretty much leave the Geforce 8800 series in the dust, at least as far as marketing is concerned. Of course, 86GB/s sounds pretty much like nothing when compared to 140GB/s - at least EXPECT to see that writ large on the retail boxes. The R600 board is FAT. The PCB will be shorter than 8800GTX's in every variant, and you can compare it to X1950XT and 7900GTX. The huge thing is the cooler. It is a monstrous, longer-than-the-PCB quad-heat pipe, Artic-Cooling style-fan on steroids looking beast, built from a lot of copper. Did we say that it also weighs half a ton? This is the heaviest board that will hit the market and you will want to install the board while holding it with both hands. The cooler actually enhances the structural integrity of the PCB, so you should be aware that R600 will bring some interesting things to the table. If you ask yourself why in the world AMD would design such a thing, the answer is actually right in front of you. Why is it important that a cooler is so big? Well, it needs to dissipate heat from practically every element of the board: GPU chip, memory chips and the power regulation unit. There will be two versions of the board: Pele comes with GDDR4 memory, and UFO has GDDR3 memory, as Charlie already wrote here. DAAMIT is currently contemplating one and two gigabyte variants, offering a major marketing advantage over Graphzilla's "uncomputerly" 640 and 768MB. Did we mention two gigabytes of video memory? Yup, insane - though perhaps not in the professional world, where this 2GB board will compete against upcoming G80GL and its 0.77/1.5GB of video memory. We do not expect that R600 with 2GB will exist in any other FORM than in FireGL series, but the final call hasn't been made yet. The original Rage Theatre chip is gone for good. After relying on that chip for Vivo functions for almost a decade, the company decided to replace the chip with the newer digital Rage Theatre 200. It is not decided what marketing name will be used, but bear in mind that the R600 will feature video-in and video-out functions from day one. The death of the All-in-Wonder series made a big impact on many people inside the company and now there is a push to offer biggest support for HD in and out connectors. When we turn to power, it seems the sites on-line are reporting values that are dead wrong, especially when mentioning the special power connectors which were present on the A0 engineering sample. Our sources are claiming they are complying to industry standards and that the spec for R600 is different that those rumoured. Some claim half of the rumours out there began life as FUD from Nvidia. For starters, the rumour about this 80nm chip eating around 300W is far from truth. The thermal budget is around 200-220 Watts and the board should not consume more power than a Geforce 8800GTX. Our own Fudo was right in a detail - the R600 cooler is designed to dissipate 250 Watts. This was necessary to have an cooling headroom of at least 15 per cent. You can expect the R680 to use the same cooler as well and still be able to work at over 1GHz. This PCB is also the base for R700, but from what we are hearing, R700 will be a monster of a different kind. As far as the Crossfire EDITION of the board goes, we can only say: good bye and good riddance. Just like RV570, the X1900GT board, the R600 features new dual-bridge connector for Crossfire capability. This also ends nightmares of reviewers and partners, because reviewing Crossfire used to be such a pain, caused by the rarily of the Crossfire edition cards. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35708 Bonus add-on POST AMD R600 Demo for CeBIT Expo -- Ruby 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ6aMxPh6k0

1386.	Solve : Warning to Chase banking customers?
Answer» Crazy VIDEO proof of Chase bank not PROPERLY DISPOSING of customer records. YouTube SHOCKER: Chase Bank Records Found In Trash http://wjz.com/business/finance_story_121204328.html Link to YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_8xRnzQqME

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1387.	Solve : new mid-range 800 series card is out?
Answer» It's a 8600 GTS model. it is Direct X 10 compatible and about 200.00 Link * Fixing linkThe 8500 is out too. I'll have to UPDATE my GPU FAQ SOON.Calum, LOOK at this thing !! lol, pretty soon your gonna need 2 cases ... Link *Edit fixing link.Dear me. We'll be needing cases that are as big as the ROOM if this trend continues!It is not larger than usual, apart from the water pump As mentioned above I agree it doesn't look larger than two slots. But with that liquid cool unit it does make it look like a beast. In addition you would have to have a case either with an extra fan SLOT if you were to mount it to bring air from outside the case.

1388.	Solve : The Arrival of TeraFLOP Computing?
Answer» GREAT ARTICLE on the arrival of Teraflop computing. This is ADDITIONAL information on that 80-core INTEL PROCESSOR I posted in the off topic section with a lot more information and pictures of the development. link

1391.	Solve : Google's Next Big Project: Computerized Language Translation?
Answer» Wednesday, March 28, 2007 MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — In Google Inc.'s (GOOG) vision of the future, people will be able to translate documents instantly into the world's main languages, with machine logic, not expert linguists, leading the way. Google's approach, called statistical machine translation, differs from past efforts in that it forgoes language experts who program grammatical rules and dictionaries into computers. Instead, they feed documents humans have already translated into two languages and then rely on computers to discern patterns for future translations. While the quality is not perfect, it is an improvement on previous efforts at machine translation, said Franz Och, 35, a GERMAN who heads Google's translation effort at its Mountain View headquarters south of San Francisco. "Some people that are in machine translations for a long time and then see our Arabic-English output, then they say, 'That's amazing, that's a breakthrough,'" said Och. "And then other people who have never seen what machine translation was ... they read through the sentence and they say, the first mistake here in line FIVE — it doesn't seem to work because there is a mistake there." But for some tasks, a mostly correct translation may be good enough. Speaking over lunch this week in a Google cafeteria famed for offering free, healthy food, Och showed a translation of an Arabic Web news site into easily digestible English. Two Google workers speaking Russian at a nearby table said, however, that a translation of a news site from English into their native tongue was understandable but a bit awkward. FEEDING THE MACHINE Och, who speaks German, English and some Italian, feeds hundreds of millions of words from parallel texts such as Arabic and English into the computer, using United Nations and European Union documents as key sources. Languages without considerable translated texts, such as some African languages, face greater obstacles. "The more data we feed into the system, the better it gets," said Och, who moved to the United States from Germany in 2002. The program applies statistical analysis, an approach he hopes will avoid diplomatic faux PAS, such as when Russian leader Vladimir Putin's translator miffed then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder by calling him the German "Fuehrer." The word is verboten in that context because of its association with ADOLF Hitler. "I would hope that the language model would say, well, 'Fuehrer Gerhard Schroeder is ... very rare but Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schroeder is probably 100 times more frequent than Fuehrer,' and then it would make the right decision," Och said. The center of Google's effort looks surprisingly modest. Och shares a spartan office with two others on his team, with little clutter other than a shelf of linguistic books above his desk. That's because the muscle work is performed by machines. So far, Google is offering its own statistical machine translations of Arabic, Chinese and Russian to and from English at http://www.google.com/language_tools. Third-party software gives access on the site to German and other languages, Och said. "So far, the focus is let's make it really, really good," Och said. "As part of a general Google philosophy, once it's really useful and it has impact, then there will be found ways how to make money out of it." Miles Osborne, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, who spent a sabbatical last year working on the Google project, praises Google's effort but sees limitations. "The best systems (e.g. Google) can be very good indeed for language pairs such as Arabic-English," he said. But he added software will not OVERTAKE humans in expert translations as it has in playing chess; software should be used for understanding rather than polishing documents. "It may also be useful when deciding whether to pay a human to do a good job: you could imagine looking at Japanese patent documents and seeing if they are relevant, for example," he said. Google chairman Eric Schmidt also sees broad political consequences of a world with easy translations. "What happens when we have 100 languages in simultaneous translation? Google and other companies are working on statistical machine translation so that we can on demand translate everything all the time," he told a conference earlier this year. "Many, many societies have operated in language-defined communities where they really don't understand and are not particularly sympathetic to other peoples' views because of the barrier of language. We're about to have that breakthrough and it is a huge thing." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,262041,00.html?sPage=fnc.technology/innovationCool! (no need to use ToggleText anymore!)

1393.	Solve : Microsoft gaming labelled a "disastrous endeavour"?
Answer» Games round-up Plus Xbox 360 Elite exposed WELCOME BACK TO the Monday morning gaming round-up. Xbox Investment advisor Roger Ehrenberg of Forbes, has written an interesting rebuttal concerning the success of Microsoft's Xbox 360. Ehrenberg believes Microsoft's foray into gaming has been a "disastrous endeavour", and that it should rethink its entire strategy. "Microsoft needs to take a long, hard look at its gaming strategy--and, in fact, its entire H&E strategy. At what point, regardless of its virtually endless financial resources, does it say 'enough is enough'?". Ehrenberg backs his statements up USING the home entertainment P&L figures which total a $5.4 billion loss. He continues by suggesting Microsoft should follow Nintendo's lead with the hotly-sought mass-market orientated Wii, and also concludes the Japanese market is an incredibly important territory. "Success in Japan is frequently a precursor to success globally". It won't help Microsoft's bottom line knowing that Sony's networking services on the PS3 are free, and Xbox Live is possibly overpriced - Teamxbox has written an article entitled 'An inconvenient truth' which discusses this point in finer details. Fortunately, it seems there's a huge demand for the 360 Elite - and Complete.com suggests it already surpasses the demand for the Core and Premium models. Fancy taking a pick into the newly announced Xbox 360 Elite before it's even hit the shelves? Well now you can, courtesy of LLamma.com. The second part takes a further look at the CPU packaging and the back of the motherboard. You can also take a garner at pictures of the HDD transfer cable here. If its a portable Xbox 360 you're after, look no further. If attaching a portable DISPLAY isn't your cup of tea, you can followEngadget's Xbox 360 laptop build tutorial, which came after Ben Heckendorn's unveiling of the Xbox 360 Laptop mk2. Quality stuff. If you're tired of the laptop mod, how about a tilt mod for your 360 controller. Now you can no longer be jealous of those tilt wielding PS3 and Wii friends via this hack, called 'Xilt'. Other Xbox related news has flown thick and fast this week. Most important of all is news that Jeff Minter's Space Giraffe is finished and heading to XBLA quicker than you can say sheepie. Microsoft has announced a new colour barcode system for use on Xbox games and similar products. This new color-based barcoding system developed by Microsoft is designed for user interaction, such as taking a picture with an XBL webcam and having it register as a prize or reward inside a video game. Sounds like fun and might finally give some use to thewebcam. Fancy OpenBSD on your original Xbox? Keep an eye on the work being done here. PS3/PSP This INQ hack has had to force himself to have time off from his newly acquired Japanese PS3 from down-town Akihabara to bring you this report. Bah. Downloadable PS1 titles compatible with the American PLAYSTATION 3 will start to appear sometime next month, according to Sony Computer Entertainment's US office. A Sony UK spokesperson wasn't immediately able to clarify European plans for downloadable PS1 games, but did say that we should expect an announcement regarding the Playstation Network 'soon'. This came shortly after the release of firmware updated for both PS3 and PSP aimed at allowing for PS1 games bought in the PS3 Store to work on both formats. The 1.70 update for the PS3 puts in place ability for PS3 owners to play downloaded Playstation 1 games on their PS3. There's a growing number of PS1 titles available for download on the Playstation Network that originally required downloading onto a PSP in order to use. They've also put in a feature to ALLOW transferring PS1 save game data to and from a PSP memory stick, letting you continue your saved games on the go. Another major plus with the new 1.70 firmware is the news that PS3s will now be compatible with any PS1 or PS2 accessory. All you need is a USB adapter for the controller and plugging it in will allow it to fully operate. Lets hope this helps Sony ship consoles in Europe, as UK retailers are already cutting PS3 hardware and software prices - some as low as £387.87 for the 60GB UK model, and Easter holiday software sales at £29.99 a pop. Despite these cuts, Sony are suggesting that the European launch was an unprecedented success - Sony has sold 800,000 PS3s in Europe and the company’s CEO, Howard Stringer, called it the "largest consumer electronics sale in history." This apparently hasn't HELPED stock issues in the US though. SCEA said in a statement, "We continued to find ourselves supply constrained in March due primarily to the shift in manufacturing focus to the PS3 PAL version to support the launch of the system in Europe." In other Sony related news, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss David Reeves has issued an internal letter warning that up to 160 staff could be made redundant, citing a need to reduce the company's cost base, GamesIndustry.biz reports. The memo states: "In order to further our market leadership we sometimes have to make difficult business decisions. The management of the company has concluded that we need to change our structure, streamline and strengthen our business operations - and that our cost base needs to be significantly reduced." It appears difficult times for SCEE lay ahead. Better news comes from Sony's first decent foray into the online gaming space. A Gamespot report reveals the first usage statistics for the Playstation 3's online network, which appear to show impressive figures. According to Sony, over 1.3 million users have signed on to the free service, 600,000 of them being based in the United States. All together, users have downloaded 3.7 million pieces of content. Wii/DS Strong figures for March made Nintendo's Easter holidays even more worth celebrating. The Wii was again the No. 1 current-generation video game console, selling 259,000 units in March, NPD said Thursday. Microsoft's Xbox 360 U.S. unit sales were 199,000 in March and outpaced Sony's Playstation 3 unit sales of 130,000. In the handheld category, sales of the Nintendo DS reached 508,000 in March, ahead of Sony's Playstation Portable, or PSP, with 180,000 units. Strong sales will also be seen for the new batch of Pokemon games - the Nintendo DS debut of Nintendo's Pokemon series, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, comes in less than a week, and the company's announced that more than 530,000 people have already signed on in the form of pre-orders. These numbers are already more than twice what the previous games, Pokemon Fire Red and Pokemon Leaf Green, combined before release. Hopefully a top selling Guitar Hero esque game won't be too far away, given the gnarly demonstration of ahomebrew guitar strumming interface. Don't forget to do your Wii warm-ups before you start though - The Times has lovingly provided us all with a series of exercises for just the thing to get us warmed up here. This is if you're not already too busy making your own Chuck Norris Mii. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39096

1394.	Solve : Google surpasses Microsoft as world's most-visited site?
Answer» Personal TEXT, karma was disabled REMEMBER?ohDon't tell me you all FELL for it. no i didnt know what was going on i thought it was a random postNo, I didn't. I was just, uh, calling it to your guys' attention to test you! YEAH, that's it! whistlesNice CATCH Dilbert. I was waiting to see how long it would take...

1397.	Solve : Microsoft Goes Open Source??
Answer» Part of its Silverlight technology source code is expected to be released to developers. Microsoft is expected to show a new friendliness to the open-source COMMUNITY by unveiling plans to release the source code to a part of its Silverlight technology at MIX 07 next week, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. Sources said Microsoft will also release a beta of Silverlight, a recently unveiled browser plug-in that allows Web content providers to offer a rich video and interactive media experience from directly within Web sites. The technology leverages Vista's new graphics framework, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and Microsoft is promoting it as a direct competitor to Adobe Systems' Flash tool and delivery mechanism for rich multimedia content on the Web. Specifics on which aspect of Silverlight will be open-sourced were not available, and Microsoft's public RELATIONS firm declined to comment Friday. Aiming for Adobe The final version of Microsoft's Expression toolset for building rich Internet applications (RIAs) also may make an appearance at MIX 07, according to sources, though Microsoft has TWO more months to work on the tool according to its schedule. The company has said Expression, another product it hopes will woo RIA designers away from Adobe, will be available before the end of June. Microsoft is pitting Expression as an alternative to Adobe's recently released Creative Suite 3, and the toolset is also key to Silverlight because the company hopes designers will use it to create applications to be delivered through Silverlight. Microsoft's rather unconventional move to embrace the open-source community could be a response to Adobe Systems' announcement earlier this week that it will open-source the SDK for its Flex RIA development environment by the end of the year. Adobe has a multiyear headstart on Microsoft in luring developers to its RIA tools, and open-sourcing components of Flex should grow that base, users have said. Microsoft likely sees a need to lure developers to Silverlight as quickly as it can if it wants to catch up to Adobe. Microsoft hosted its first MIX show last year as an appeal to Web designers and developers of RIAs, an audience whose respect the company has yet to win. Microsoft has made several stops and starts in offering Web authoring and design tools over the years, but the company has had far more success among developers building desktop applications because of its Windows and Office products. Tough Market Keith Cutcliffe, IT developer and analyst for ProAssurance in Birmingham, Alabama, said he has reviewed tools in the Expression suite, and from what he's seen it's a solid product. "However, I stand by my belief that Microsoft just doesn't know how to appeal to the designer crowd," he said. Cutcliffe attended MIX in its INAUGURAL year, but is not attending next week. Strategically, Microsoft is trying to make the necessary leap to the Web as a platform for developing applications to compete not only with companies such as Adobe, but also Web services companies like Google and Yahoo. It's important for the vendor to make inroads with developers using the most cutting-edge Web and multimedia design technologies, Cutcliffe said. Adobe isn't the only competitor Microsoft had to contend with on the RIA front. A small company in Silicon Valley called Laszlo Systems also has a sophisticated tool for building RIAs, and already has made available an open-source version of it, OpenLaszlo, which lets developers build both Flash- and Ajax-based applications. David Temkin, founder and CTO, of Laszlo Systems, said Microsoft's interest and entry into the RIA space is good for competitors, because it should stir up interest in related products. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131331-c,graphicsmultimedia/article.htmlIf anyone really believes this, I have some great ocean front property in Montana............" Microsoft is expected to show a new friendliness to the open-source community by unveiling plans to release the source code to a part of its" VISTA operating system !!!!! lol, then maybe its users could get it RIGHT !QUOTE from: 2k_dummy on April 29, 2007, 06:01:46 AM If anyone really believes this, I have some great ocean front property in Montana............ I'm selling pieces of the moon, wanna trade? I'll buy both. Will you accept Saturn as payment? I've got the deed right here:

1398.	Solve : Microsoft admints Vista failure?
Answer» With TWO overlapping events, Microsoft admitted what we have been saying all along, Vista, AKA Windows Me Two (Me II), is a joke that no one wants. http://uk.theinquirer.net/?article=39087ME II....How appropiate. Ssssh. Don't tell ZYLSTRA. Microsoft didn't go down with ME and it won't go down with Vista, either... From the article: "WITH TWO OVERLAPPING events, Microsoft admitted what we have been saying all along, Vista, aka Windows Me Two (Me II), is a joke that no one wants. It did two UNPRECEDENTED things this week that frankly stunned us." What, exactly, are the two events? When and where did Microsoft make this admission? Not doubting it, just asking. I am doubting it.It's from The Inquirer so take it for what it's worth. WELL, as the saying goes, you cannot win all the time!

1399.	Solve : Nice price drop!! > E6600 Core 2 Duo?
Answer» WAS hanging around the 309.00 area now 233.00 !!! wow 4/29 &GT;> 232.00 !!!! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115003I recently bought one of the last single core 939 processors I COULD find, all of a sudden, they vanished and made room for AM2. Greeaaaat. yeah, I noticed a nice DROP in the 2 core cpu's for the 939's too........ I just noticed the price drop this morning on the Intel, I am surprised that I didn't read any news on the drop here the last couple days...USUALLY some tech/ news info would have leaked it earlier...... By the way its dropped at other retailers as well .......... I do not represent nor am I endorsing newegg... Very nice price drop.Calum, can I borrow 200 US . . . no.

1400.	Solve : Microsoft Targets Next Billion Customers?
Answer» WOW !!! Hey there, great to hear the western world gets to finance people from all over the planet!! We pay 300.00 for "our software" then the mothership just drops a few 00's off for the 3rd world!! what a deal...... Microsoft Increases Software, Education for Underserved Billions SEATTLE (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it will build on existing efforts to bridge the digital divide worldwide and announced several new ventures, including a $3 software package for governments that subsidize student computers. The software maker said it will sell a Student Innovation Suite, which includes Windows XP Starter Edition and Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, for $3 to governments that subsidize a certain percentage of the cost of PCs for primary and secondary students for use at home and at school, starting in the second half of the year. The Redmond-based company also pledged to open 90 new "innovation centers" in countries around the world. Microsoft has already opened 110 of the centers, which offer classes and access to technology for academics, local startup software companies and other groups. In addition, the company said it designed a Web site to help graduating engineering students in India get additional training and find jobs, a model it may extend in other countries if successful. The site will go online by the end of the year. Microsoft also announced it forged an alliance with the Asian Development Bank, but the company did not specify its financial commitment. Orlando Ayala, a senior vice president for Microsoft's emerging segments market development group, said it took 35 years for the company's software to REACH a billion people; REACHING the next billion isn't just a side philanthropic project for Microsoft. "Many of these people we think are going to be consumers down the road," Ayala said in an interview. Ayala would not say how much money Microsoft will spend on the programs announced Thursday. "We don't want it to be seen as an initiative, 'Oh, these guys are announcing another billion dollars,'" he said. "We're bringing this whole business strategy mainstream for Microsoft." In Beijing on Thursday, Microsoft Chairman Gates said more opportunities would be created as technology becomes easier and cheaper to use as it advances. "I'm often asked, is the technology REVOLUTION going to reach an end? And the answer is certainly that in the decades ahead, we don't see any limits," Gates said. Gates cited the growing prevalence of video on the Internet as an example of how quickly and dramatically technology improves. "Five years ago, we talked about music on the Internet; we talked about photos on the Internet. But video was not a mainstream thing. Today, it's very mainstream. Why? The power of the systems, the power of the software tools, and the use of high speed connections allow video to work very well on every one of these systems," Gates said. "We see the fact that the power will just get better and better." http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070419/microsoft_unlimited_potential.html?.v=4 * If you think this is a great idea and a feel good measure, your a liberal. (you think with your heart) * If you are kinda mad and feel like you have subsidized this ummm "venture", you just might be conservative. (you think with your head) Conservative - think with your head and speak with your wallet.Corporate sponsored schools are not a good thing.. Quote "Many of these people we think are going to be consumers down the road," Ayala said in an interview. There's nothing philanthropic about collecting new souls for the grinder; I'm sure that if they had a reason to get AIDS patients to use Microsoft software, they would have funded AIDS research and not third world students.. No amount of money or time any kind of corporation puts into 'philanthropy' is going to convince me they've got the heart in the right place, corporations simply do not carry hearts. They might sell 'm, though, to rich people that is.. I ALMOST feel ashamed for using Microsoft Windows after this publicity stunt. By the way, why would they spent $3 on Microsoft software when Linux is entirely free? I'm sure shipping will cost a bit, but in the end it'll be cheaper than $3 per copy and probably LESS painful too, I'd hate to see the third world having to go through the shite MS made us go through with spyware and viruses and the like after all the trouble we've had.. you said it better than I brother ! Yeah I think it is more of a publicity stint with surcharges jacking up the actual price that these poor souls are going to pay for actually getting the software. Open Source is gaining ground in third world countries so it would not be competitive for MS to charge $300 for something with an alternative that comes free.