Hasta La Gadget!

Time certainly flies, don’t you think so? It has been half a dozen months already since the Saucy Salamander install rolled out. This time around, the folks over at Canonical is pushing out the most recent version of its popular Linux distro, calling it Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Of course, like any other good Linux distro, it would need to be accompanied by a code name, and so we have it known as Trusty Tahr.

This will be part of its long term support series, and that translates to it being on the receiving end of support and security updates for up to five years instead of the standard nine months. For companies that use either on desktop machines and servers, this is definitely good news. Why is Trusty such a big deal for Canonical? Well, it basically allows the operating system to be ready to see action on touchscreen displays, high DPI screens and tablets. Up till now, Ubuntu has not properly scaled high resolution displays. Apart from that, Ubuntu 14.04 would mark the first stable version of Ubuntu for tablets, now how about that? Are you stoked yet? Those who are interested are able to download Ubuntu 14.04 for free, of course. [Press Release]

Canonical Reveals Ubuntu 14.04 Desktop , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Computers, ubuntu,

When the IRS began using computers in the early 60s, there was national outrage: how could a machine be trusted to look after our finances? This 10-minute video, fresh from the archives, was an attempt to convince people that everything would be OK.

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We have heard about the Heartbleed bug in recent times, as well as denials by at least one entity (the NSA, no less) concerning knowledge about the existence of such a vulnerability without informing the masses. Well, it seems that there has been a Heartbleed attack that has resulted in a loss of taxpayer data from Canada’s tax agency website. Apparently, a 19-year old Canadian man is the culprit who has been charged by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police .

According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Stephen Arthuro Solis-Reyes was picked up from his residence on Tuesday, where has been charged with unauthorized use of a computer as well as mischief in relation to data. After performing a search on his residence, the police seized some of his computer equipment – presumably for evidence purposes. A spokesman for the Western University did share that Solis-Reyes is a computer science student there. I guess there is a line between using and abusing one’s brilliance in any chosen field, no?

The Canada Revenue Agency did shut down their publicly accessible website last Friday after learning about the Heartbleed computer bug, and on Monday, they disclosed that up to 900 social insurance numbers were compromised. How has Heartbleed affected your day to day life?

Heartbleed Attack Results In Stolen Taxpayer Data , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Computers, heartbleed,

As we’re sure many of you guys have heard by now, Windows XP is officially no longer supported by Microsoft. The operating system is still alive and kicking but it is no longer being supported, meaning that updates designed to protect the computer from viruses and malware will no longer be issued.

This isn’t good news for businesses and governments that still rely heavily on Windows XP and have yet to make the switch. Last we heard, Microsoft was charging very high prices to keep adding support until these organizations or government agencies had the opportunity to upgrade. Well it turns out Microsoft has had a change of heart and is now offering a discount.

In a statement released by Microsoft to ZDNet, “We’ve been working with customers and partners on the migration from Windows XP since we announced in September 2007 that support for Windows XP would end on April 8. 2014. As part of this effort, we’ve made custom support more affordable so large enterprise organizations could have temporary support in place while they migrate to a more modern and secure operating system.”

Microsoft did not state how big the discount was but according to ZDNet’s source, one customer had an original quote of $85 million to cover his entire company reduce to $3 million which is an extremely huge discount. ComputerWorld on the other hand has cited its own sources which claims that the ceiling for the custom coverage is set at $250,000, with a price of $250 per device which admittedly sounds a lot more reasonable.

Microsoft Discounting Windows XP Support For Enterprise , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Computers, Microsoft, windows xp,

It was at CES 2014 this year that Toshiba paraded a couple of notebooks that ran on Windows 8.1, where both of the notebooks revealed carried a screen resolution of 3840 x 2160. As to when either one of them would be released, that remained to be seen. Well, we are glad to bring you word today that one of them, the Toshiba Satellite P55t will at long last, go on sale this coming April 22nd in the U.S.

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Toshiba Satellite P55t Notebook Launches Next Week original content from Ubergizmo.