Feb 22

Kaspersky: Oops, was that Windows Explorer?

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on December 21, 2007 by CyberNet.

Kaspersky Explorer Virus

On Wednesday there was a two-hour period where Kaspersky had pushed out antivirus signatures that contained a major flaw. They inadvertently identified Windows Explorer (Explorer.exe) as a virus, which many of you know is pretty darn critical for Windows. The virus alert will look like the one in the screenshot above, which was taken by a Kaspersky forum member. It essentially says:

Detected: virus Worm.Win32.Huhk.c
Running module: explorer.exe\Explorer.EXE

Kaspersky made a point to say that this only affects a portion of XP users out there:

The version of explorer.exe which was falsely detected was released via Microsoft Windows Update service as an Update for Windows XP on 24.07.2007.

If you were caught in the storm, as many were, there shouldn’t be too much of a problem since Kaspersky quarantines viruses by default. That means you can restore the Explorer.EXE file with little issues, but the real pain is if users have set Kaspersky to automatically delete viruses that are found!

After restarting the computer the Start Menu, Taskbar, System Tray, and Desktop will not be visible. Kaspersky has instructions on how you can fix the issue, but it will take a good amount of work to get things back to normal. My condolences go out to all of the IT administrators who have to deal with this issue on dozens of computers.

I guess this is a good lesson as to why backing up your files is extremely important. You never know when an important system file will accidentally be quarantined or deleted, and it could upset your entire day if you’ve never made a backup of your documents.

[via The Register]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Feb 22

Adobe promises Flash Player 10.2 for Honeycomb tablets ‘in a few weeks,’ Xoom gets namechecked

Posted in: adobe, flash, Google, honeycomb, motorola, motorola xoom, MotorolaXoom, Software, tablet, Today's Chili, update, xoom

We found out yesterday that Motorola’s Xoom would be shipping sans Flash support on Verizon Wireless, and while Big Red claimed that an update would be doled out this spring, the folks at Adobe are pointing to a far more specific time frame. In a new post over at the Flash Platform Blog, Adobe has confirmed that “Flash Player 10.2 [will be] pre-installed on some tablets and as an OTA download on others within a few weeks of Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) devices becoming available, the first of which is expected to be the Motorola Xoom.” We’re guessing that the company’s going public with a statement like this to fend off fears that the Xoom may be waiting an eternity for Flash, in essence removing a bit of fear from hesitant early adopters. Either way, it’s excellent news for those eying a Honeycomb tablet of any flavor, and we’re going to take the liberty of taking “a few weeks” to mean “a fortnight.” Cool, Adobe?

Adobe promises Flash Player 10.2 for Honeycomb tablets ‘in a few weeks,’ Xoom gets namechecked originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 22

Opera Mobile 9.5 Just What the Doctor Ordered

Posted in: mobile, Opera, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on February 05, 2008 by CyberNet.

Opera Mobile 9.5 Opera Mobile 9.5 was just announced with a compelling set of features. But don’t confuse Opera Mobile, which costs $24, with the free Opera Mini. The difference is that Opera Mini is geared for small-screen mobile devices such as cellphones, whereas Opera Mobile works on smartphones running Windows Mobile.

After looking at the Opera Mobile 9.5 screenshot pictured to the right you’ll quickly notice that it takes some cues from the iPhone. Is that a bad thing? Not at all. The iPhone was one of the first devices that really showed us that our browsing experience doesn’t have to be compromised simply because we’re using a mobile device.

I give Opera a lot of credit though because they made sure to fix some of the biggest complaints that I’ve heard with Safari running on the iPhone. With Opera Mobile 9.5 you can save a website to the device for offline access, store passwords so that they don’t have to be typed over and over again, and even copy text! What might be even more important, however, is the compatibility Opera Mobile has with Flash Lite. Yep, you can get all of the YouTube videos without needing an external application.

Here’s a look at some of the other useful features you’ll find in Opera Mobile 9.5:

  • Intuitive user interface
  • Tabbed browsing
  • Improved text wrap
  • Page overview, zooming and panning
  • Landscape mode
  • Call phone number from Web page
  • Send link as SMS/MMS
  • Send image as SMS/MMS
  • Small Screen Rendering
  • Web address input auto-completion
  • History and bookmarks
  • Opera Widgets

If you really want to see how it all works checkout this video put together by Opera:

[via jkOnTheRun]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Feb 22

Motorola Atrix root found to be signed, hacking might not be so easy

Posted in: Android, Google, hack, hacked, motorola, Software, Today's Chili

Motorola Atrix root found to be signed, hacking might not be so easyThat the Atrix got itself rooted before it was even available made us wonder just how… receptive it would be to the caresses of the hacker community at large. Sadly we’re finding it’s perhaps a bit more frigid than its friendly demeanor might have lead us to believe. User adlx.xda over at the xda-developers forums has found that the phone’s system files are not encrypted, but they are signed. This will make the process of replacing them and loading custom builds and the like rather more complicated — but surely not impossible.

[Thanks, chaoslimits]

Motorola Atrix root found to be signed, hacking might not be so easy originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 11:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 22

Vista Virtual Desktops on XP, too!

Posted in: Freeware, Pre-Release, Reviews, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, Windows Vista, Windows XP

This article was written on September 06, 2007 by CyberNet.

Vista Virtual esktops

Back in July we created a screencast of a great freeware app called Vista Virtual Desktops that made use of Vista’s advanced Aero interface. The program has since gotten a much requested upgrade which includes support for the Windows XP operating system.

The version for XP isn’t quite the same as the one for Vista, and the largest difference is that Vista’s shows live previews of the windows. Of course, I’ve had problems getting the live previews to show up after they’ve been moved off of the current desktop, as seen in the screenshot above, so XP users shouldn’t feel that they’re missing out much from that aspect.

There are some other changes as well, such as support for unique backgrounds on each virtual desktop:

  • XP support
  • Better support for per-desktop background pictures (turned off by default)
  • Major bug fixes
  • Per-desktop tray icons change color to show activation
  • "Send Window to Desktop X" keyboard hotkeys (Ctrl+Win+Numpad 1…9 by default)
  • Win + Up and down arrow keys now move up and down in the desktop list

Note: I haven’t tried this out myself on XP, but I’d have to imagine that it’s pretty much the same as the Vista version. If you try this out on XP let us know how it goes.

Vista/XP Virtual Desktops Homepage

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Feb 22

webOS 2.1 for the Pre Plus now available to download for O2 Germany users

Posted in: download, firmware, germany, HP, o2, pre, Software, Today's Chili, update, upgrade, webos

In spite of HP’s strong assurances to the contrary, the Palm Pre Plus is actually going to give users the option to ride into webOS 2.x territory. As we speculated yesterday, O2 Germany Pre Plus owners can now download a new firmware package for their slider handsets, which will work its magic and update them to version 2.1 of HP’s magnificent software. The company has been actively discouraging users and programmers from pairing the older hardware with the latest software, so we can’t promise it’ll be a bump-free ride for all upgraders, but having the option is all people have been asking for and now it’s there — and by “there” we mean the source link below.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

webOS 2.1 for the Pre Plus now available to download for O2 Germany users originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 06:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Pre Central forums  |  sourcePalm (download)  | Email this | Comments

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Feb 22

New FoxyTunes Feature Helps You Socially Share your Music

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on July 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

FoxyTunes fans, listen up! FoxyTunes has just released a new version with a handful of changes and a new feature called Signatures. The Signature feature will allow you to put a signature in email messages and on blog posts that displays the music that you’re currently listening to. It’s yet another way that you’re bale to socially share your music with others.

Right now there’s a list of 9 different services which are supported, however they note that they intend to add many more sites to this this:

  • Facebook Notes, Mail
  • WordPress
  • AOL Mail
  • SquirrelMail
  • MySpace Blogs
  • Yahoo! Mail
  • Hotmail
  • Horde Webmail

Foxtunessignature

The image above shows what this feature will look like. It’s pretty simple to use. You’ll notice an icon on the supported sites like WordPress, and all you have to do is click the icon and your signature will be inserted for you. According to the FoxyTunes blog, “the added music signature is more than just a song title – it links to FoxyTunes Planet where your friends can listen to music and learn all there is to know about your favorite artists and songs. You can also use the “auto-insert” mode to have your signature automatically inserted.

The latest release is the first part of what will become FoxyTunes 3.0. Download FoxyTunes 3 phase 1 here.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Feb 21

AT&T To Bring Voice Web App to iPhone

Posted in: iPhone, iphone 3g, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on July 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

megaphone.pngOne of the features that many people are quick to point out is missing from the iPhone is voice dialing. Hundreds of phones offer such a feature and when the new iPhone 3G didn’t have it, people were left wondering why. Soon the iPhone will have at least a few voice-type features thanks to technology that AT&T is researching and developing. It won’t give iPhone owners voice calling, but what it will give them the option to give voice commands.

AppleInsider explains more about it saying, “The research project is based on a new version of AT&T’s WATSON speech recognition engine, dubbed Speech Mashups, that puts the entire feature on the web as a service that can be called upon from anywhere a high-speed Internet Connection is possible.”

We saw a video (found here at the bottom) of the technology in action and it looked pretty accurate. The person doing the demo was on the mobile Yellow Pages website, and they were able to speak the city and state they were in and the business name or category they were looking for (in this case, Japanese Restaurants) and the technology translated the spoken words in text. It worked perfectly in the demo.

Of course this is something that will work on more than just the iPhone which is nice to know as well. For iPhone owners though, this will be pretty big because it’s their first opportunity (aside from one App) to make use of any type of voice feature on their phones. The only downside that we can see so far is that a phone has to have a decent connection to AT&T’s servers for this to work.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Feb 21

QuickCal Widget: Use Natural Language to Add iCal Events

Posted in: Features, Mac, Newly Released, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on May 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

quickcal widget.png

arrow Mac Mac only arrow
One of my favorite features in Google Calendar is the “Quick Add” feature that lets you use a more natural language for adding events to the calendar. Apple iCal users can get a similar feature thanks to the free QuickCal Widget. Once you’ve added the widget to your Dashboard you’ll instantly be able to add events to iCal using descriptive wording, such as:

  • Dinner tomorrow at 6:00pm until 9pm
  • Meet with Roger next Wednesday at 3:30 pm
  • Jogging today at 6pm for 30 minutes
  • Dad’s birthday on saturday
  • Yoga class on 4/5 at noon
  • todo – Clean golf clubs
  • File taxes before 4/15/2008!!!
  • Write novel –todo

You’ll notice that some of those examples include todo items, and that’s because the widget can also add tasks to your todo list. Here are some of the different things it uses to distinguish whether what you entered should be added to your todo list:

  • Without due dates: start or end the text with “todo” (”todo – walk the dog”, “todo – renew domains”)
  • With a due date: no need to use “todo”, just end your text with “due”, “due on”, “before”, “by” – with a date. (”file taxes before 4/15?, “electric bill due next tuesday”)
  • You can assign importance to tasks by throwing bangs/exclamation marks after your text. The more you add, the more important it is. (”todo – sorta important!”, “todo – REALLY IMPORTANT!!!”)

And when it comes to reminders QuickCal will look at how far the scheduled event is, and add multiple reminders accordingly. This feature can be completely turned off if you want, or you can tweak it to your liking. By default this is how it works:

All events will have a reminder set to 15 minutes away. Events created more than a week in advance will notify you the day before, as well. And if you create something more than a month away, a reminder will be created two weeks before the event. (So, one distant event = 3 reminders)

This is a really handy widget that any iCal user will probably love. Once you get used to the syntax it can make adding events quick and painless.

QuickCal Widget for Mac

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Feb 21

Microsoft Loses the Search Battle; Vista SP1 Coming this Year

Posted in: Google, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, Windows Vista

This article was written on June 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

Google Microsoft Search

Well, it happened…again. Microsoft lost the war against Google in regards to the integrated search feature that Vista has. Google was upset at just how integrated the search capabilities are in Vista, and wanted a way to implement their own instant search throughout the operating system. An example of this is in Vista’s Start Menu where a search box prominently sits, and is incredibly useful.

Vista SearchThe only area that I thought Google would have a valid complaint is if the "Search the Internet" link in the Start Menu always used MSN for searching. It doesn’t though, clicking on that link will pull up your default browser and shows you search results from your default search engine.

That wasn’t enough for Google though, and so Microsoft plans on making amends when they release Vista SP1 (which they have now said will come this year). Here is a summary of the changes being made:

  1. Defaults: Computer manufacturers and consumers will be able to select a default desktop search program similar to the way they currently select defaults for third-party web browsers and media players in Windows Vista.
  2. Easy Links: Links to the default desktop search program will be provided on the Start menu and in Windows Explorer windows.
  3. Developer guidance: Microsoft will provide information to developers of third-party desktop search programs about how they can optimize their programs to minimize any performance problems.

Here was Google’s response to the ruling:

We are pleased that as a result of Google’s request that the consent decree be enforced, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general have required Microsoft to make changes to Vista. These remedies are a step in the right direction, but they should be improved further to give consumers greater access to alternate desktop search providers.

Now I’m all for the power of choice, but there are kind of some double standards going on here. We’ve been having a discussion over in the forum the past few days where we share our opinions on whether it is fair for Microsoft to undergo such scrutiny, and MetaMan couldn’t have put it any better:

In Europe, Microsoft is not allowed to ship WMP with all copies of Windows. However, no one has ever stopped Apple from shipping iTunes with its computers. The US tried to stop Microsoft from shipping IE with copies of Windows, but never questioned Apple’s right to distribute Safari. I feel that everyone should just lighten up, but if they can’t do that, at least hold everyone to the same standard.

Of course the instinctive response to that would be that Apple isn’t close to having the marketshare that Microsoft does, but these proposed regulations should be independent of both the marketshare and the platform. If Microsoft has to open up Vista’s integrated search to outside developers, then shouldn’t Apple have to do the same thing with Spotlight?

Personally I think that this kind of stuff hinders the development of Windows…Apple doesn’t have to worry about whether they are going to please the courts when adding features to their operating system. Frankly I’m surprised that Windows development hasn’t come to a stand still. What do you think?

Kudos to dpotts for the tip!

Source: ZDNet, CNet, and Todd Bishop
Image source

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