This Week In Tech

Welcome to Technology Chat Corner. We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Plus, members will have all ads on the board removed. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.

Join our community!

If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

This Week In Tech; 11-10-08
Topic Started: Nov 13 2008, 01:29 AM (214 Views)
Speedy	Nov 13 2008, 01:29 AM Post #1
Google Whore Posts: 2,767 Group: Admin Member #8 Joined: January 27, 2007	Brought to you by Boeing Internet Hotmail users are complaining that the new Windows Live Hotmail user interface is slower and is harder to use. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119553 Security Researchers have found a way to break the WPA encryption standard used by many wireless routers. The attack method allows data sent from the router to the PC to be read, but not data sent from the PC to the router. It has been thought that a crack of WPA would take large amounts of processing power and a considerable amount of time, but the new approach only takes 15 minutes. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119258 http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Cracking-the-WPA-Security-Standard Software Adobe released security patches for Adobe Reader 8.1.2. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119038 http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Security-Bug-Bites-Adobe-Reader 90.46% of users who accessed a monitored set of Web sites were running Windows, up 0.17% from Sept, mostly due to increasing spread of Windows Vista. The Macintosh share did not grow, for the 4th time this year. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9118918 Firefox hit 20% of the browser market share for 2 weeks in Oct., then dropped back down just below 20%. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9118958 Mozilla delayed release of Firefox 3.1 to add a Private Browsing mode that doesn't record what the user does, doesn't cache anything, and doesn't save cookies or history. IE 8 will have a similar InPrivate feature, and Chrome has an Incognito mode. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119058 http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/browsers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212000548 Solid-state drives (SSD) have not been as fast as promised, in part because the operating systems have not effectively used them. Windows 7 will have better support for solid-state drives, including turning off defragmentation, which can wear out an SSD without improving performance. SSDs will be partitioned differently, to make reads and writes faster. Windows 7 will reduce the amount of data that has to be deleted, making an SSD last longer. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119524 The Windows 7 installation will be smaller than Windows Vista, taking up 8GB. Windows 7 will use less memory by using the video card more, and will use less power by letting the CPU idle more. Windows 7 will start faster by loading device drivers in parallel, and by starting fewer services. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119458 Hardware With demand for faster booting PCs, PC vendors are adding a Linux-based boot that gives Web and instant messaging access, plus the ability to play CDs and DVDs. There is no access to the hard drive, or user data. Continuing with the boot process loads the operating system on the hard drive. If this concept catches on, Linux will be on every PC, so it will eventually be on more PCs than Windows, although with a subset of functionality. http://blogs.computerworld.com/desktop_linux_tidal_wave_alert http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/linux/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=211800393 Sandisk announced a new memory management system for solid-state drives that will improve read and write speeds, and write data more efficiently to make SSDs last longer. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119259 http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/portable/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212001132 Intel will start shipping the Core i7 processors this month, with a quad-core CPU aimed at power users and gamers. The new CPUs are much faster, and more energy efficient. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119070 http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119540 http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Intel-Core-i7-Processor-Launches-Nov-17-and-Enterprise-Chips-to-Follow http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/processors/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212001056 Prices for Blu-ray DVD players are dropping, with players expected to be $150-$200 for the holidays. Movie download services are providing competition, so movie download capabilities are also being added to players.. http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/bluray/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212001280 Business AT&T is buying Wayport, a wireless Internet hot spot provider, which will add about 3,000 hot spots to AT&T's 17,000. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119361 http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/ATT-Acquires-WiFi-Firm-Wayport http://www.informationweek.com/news/telecom/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212001130 Dell is asking employees to take up to 5 days of unpaid vacation, has imposed a hiring freeze, and is offering voluntary severance packages in an attempt to cut costs. http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20081104/tc_nm/us_dell_vacation_2 http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Dell-Looks-to-Save-Dollars-Through-Additional-Cost-Savings-Measures http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212000525 Microsoft is working on an online store where developers can sell their applications, similar to Apple's AppStore. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119552
	Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"/ Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night." - Charles M. Schulz Software Reviews


trewert	Nov 13 2008, 12:50 PM Post #2
Wanderer in the Fog Posts: 731 Group: Members Member #10 Joined: January 28, 2007	The market share of different browsers continues to vary greatly between different sets of people. In Germany, firefox is stronger than IE in many cases, and in particular on private computers. Germany's largest website, spiegel.de, regularly finds that about 50% of its readers on weekends use firefox, and more than 40% on weekdays.



AGFApan	Nov 17 2008, 09:51 PM Post #3
Amateur Poster Posts: 27 Group: Members Member #35 Joined: January 4, 2008	I would certainly say that even in the US Fierfox use is stronger among individual users, especially among advance users. It would be interesting to see how many home IE users are also using WEP, or no encryption, for their wireless router, compared to Firefox.



Speedy	Nov 17 2008, 10:04 PM Post #4
Google Whore Posts: 2,767 Group: Admin Member #8 Joined: January 27, 2007	Sadly I am using WEP here. Only because I have certain devices that won't accept TKIP.
	Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"/ Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night." - Charles M. Schulz Software Reviews


AGFApan	Nov 18 2008, 01:25 PM Post #5
Amateur Poster Posts: 27 Group: Members Member #35 Joined: January 4, 2008	Ah, so if I lived next to you I could be getting free internet As long as you are vigilant about it and make use of the other security settings available on your router, you probably won't run into problems. However, I might be tempted to run Kismet once and a while to see who's around. The point I was trying to make is that people who tend to accept the default on one thing, like Internet Explorer will accept the default on other things like their wireless router. However, their are the power IE users who I admire. Getting Microsoft software to run securely and correctly is not something I'm able to do.



Speedy	Nov 19 2008, 12:43 AM Post #6
Google Whore Posts: 2,767 Group: Admin Member #8 Joined: January 27, 2007	Good chance, but the people in my area are pretty dumb, so I'm not too worried about it. People accept defaults way too much, I'm guilty often. Windsor was amazing at getting IE to run securely.
	Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"/ Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night." - Charles M. Schulz Software Reviews


AGFApan	Nov 19 2008, 11:33 PM Post #7
Amateur Poster Posts: 27 Group: Members Member #35 Joined: January 4, 2008	People in your area dumb This is what my neighborhood looks like... Code: `BSSID PWR Beacons #Data, #/s CH MB ENC CIPHER AUTH ESSID 00:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX 219 203 9 0 11 48. WPA2 CCMP PSK UROK 00:0D:72:10:E2:91 185 662 0 0 6 22 WEP WEP 2WIRE056 00:18:39:FE:6E:85 176 283 9 0 6 48 OPN linksys 00:1E:2A:76:84:46 176 340 0 0 9 48 WPA TKIP PSK NETGEAR9 00:0D:72:90:FD:71 175 191 0 0 6 22 WEP WEP 2WIRE244 00:1E:58:EE:69:5B 172 55 0 0 6 54. OPN dlink 00:0B:06:22:62:43 171 104 19 0 1 11 OPN Motorola 66:02:14:00:5C:02 -1 191 0 0 6 1 WEP WEP SST-PR-1` Three open routers, two 2Wire routers with default settings, and two fairly secure WPA routers. There have been some nights that I have noticed up to six clients on one of the open connections, so I think they have been discovered. SST-PR-1 is an Atlas Butter , commercial van. UROK, of course is me. Anyway, I hope Windsor is doing well. If he were still with us, I might not be typing on a Linux Laptop tonight.



Corum	Nov 24 2008, 06:48 PM Post #8
Sphincter Posts: 125 Group: Members Member #33 Joined: November 2, 2007	Wow! Only 8gb for windows 7!



1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)


« Previous Topic · General Technology Articles and Discussions · Next Topic »