New, tips, and more
From Baseline Magazine:
It happens in minutes. Hackers with bot code break into vulnerable computers, turn them into zombies and launch an assault against your computer systems. And while you scramble to secure your network - and the vital data on it - botmasters sell access to your hacked machines for pennies apiece.
Here’s the inside story of how bots work - and what you can do to protect your company.
From TechRepublic:
Nominees for the 10th annual Webby Awards were announced Tuesday, and the list of potential honorees reads like a who’s who of well-known Web properties.
The awards–which have seen the Internet rise, fall and rise again with the birth of Web 2.0–will be presented June 12 at a ceremony in New York City hosted by comedian Rob Corddry of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” Winners will be officially revealed May 9.
Awards will be granted in 65 categories, including activism, banking and bill paying, celebrity/fan, humor, personal Web site, science and more.
From TechWeb:
A San Francisco company specializing in automated retail has plans for 10,000 consumer electronics vending machines installed in high-traffic places like airports and hotels in just a few years.
Zoom Systems already has 100 units installed, and Zoom chief executive officer Gower Smith hopes the company’s strategy will increase sales of high-end Apple Computer gadgets and other electronics through kiosks.
The oft-rumoured Google Calendar finally made its appearance this week and it looks impressive.
The only thing I’m not sure of, is who actually needs a web-based calendar? If you are a business user, you are most likely using Outlook or something else similar. If you are a home user, then you’ve probably found something else to use. Why a web-based calendar? I guess we’ll see how it progresses.
If you are interested in this, you may also want to check out the Interesting Google Calendars posting at Google Blogoscoped for some interesting publicly available calendars.
From Forbes:
The Internet is supposed to be limitless–a boundary-free exchange of digital information and profit. So how can it be running out of real estate?
The answer, according to information technology experts, lies in cyberspace’s ever-growing popularity. In theory, each new user who wants to log on needs a new address, as does each new Internet-enabled gadget, like smartphones that can access the Web. Routers, which allow multiple users and devices to use a single address, are helping stave off the problem for now, but it’s only a stopgap measure.
Currently, the Internet has room for 4.3 billion addresses. About one-third of those are already in use, and more than another one-third are spoken for. By 2012, there will be some 17 billion devices connected to the network, estimates research firm IDC.
But an update to the rules that govern how data moves along the Internet could solve the real estate crunch before it starts.
One of the most basic tips that I can offer is also one that can really yield a lot of results, and one that is often forgotten. Read your manuals.
Today’s digital cameras, even the simple point and shoot ones, have a lot of features that you may not even be aware of, let alone use. My mother recently purchased a Canon Rebel XT, a digital SLR, for my father. The most important thing I could tell him was to read his manual. If your camera has a few features, you may be able to go over the whole manual in one shot. If it has a lot of features, do it over a period of time, reading and learning each new feature one at a time. When you read the manual, have the camera beside you so that you can follow along with the instruction in the manual.
Is there something about digital photography you would like to know? Why don’t you send me your questions and I will do what I can to answer them. Send a picture along and I might include in a future tip.
The digital photography tip of the week is written by the PCIN Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Chris is a long time photographer and is currently the vice-president of the Niagara Falls Camera Club. You can see more of his photography at his Photo of the Day website.
If you have a tip to send Chris, or a question about digital photography he can address in the newsletter, send it to chris@pcin.net.
The latest LangaList newsletter had the following:
2) New, Free, Graphical Partitioning Tool
Fred, This just came in Scott Spanbauer’s weekly PCWorld newsletter “Software Report” (give credit where credit is due).
http://partitionlogic.org.uk/index.html is the home of J. Andrew (Andy) McLaughlin’s website devoted to “Partition Logic.” Among it’s other features:
- FREE! (GNU general public licence)
- It can create, delete, format, defragment, resize, and move partitions and modify their attributes. It can copy entire hard disks from one to another. - It’s basically intended to duplicate the work of commercial programs such as Partition Magic, Ghost, Drive Image or BootItNG — but for FREE. - It works from a bootable floppy or CD, under it’s own operating system. - And did I mention that it’s FREE?I fear for the site’s survival — it might get hit with the dreaded “Langa effect.” —Bruce Fraser
Excellent, Bruce: Looks like a nice tool! A small caveat: Note the version number, which is below “1.0″ While it’s always smart to make a backup before using any partition tool, it’s especially important when the tool is young, as this one is. But it looks super so far— and a free self-contained partition tool with a graphical front end is a very nice addition to the toolbox.
I haven’t tried it, but it sounds interesting. Check it out!
As I mentioned before, Michael Robertson (of MP3.com fame) is backing development of online software tools using AJAX. He previously had announced ajaxWrite and ajaxSketch. You can get notification of new programs from the ajaxLaunch.com announcement site.
The latest title is eyespot:
Shoot, Mix, and Share your Video.
Use the eyespot Mixer to edit and combine your videos, music and photos online! Share your video and mixes with the world for Free.
I haven’t tried it (I don’t have any video to edit), but it sounds pretty cool to be able to edit simple video in your browser. If you’ve tried it, be sure to leave a comment.
Note: AJAX is a development process/technique. You can learn about it on Wikipedia.
If you run a web site, then you should definitely check out this web site. The BackLink Analyzer Tool gives you access to sites that link to you, who owns that site, the Google cache of these pages, and more…
Information The Backlinks Analyzer gives
- Number of Links to Domain
- Number of Links to Homepage
- Pages Indexed (shows the number of pages in Yahoo for site:www.domain.com search )
- Deep Link Percentage (Links to Homepage compared to Links to domain)
- Finds all unique linking domains
- Shows IP addresses & unique c block addresses of each of those linking domains
- Domains from .mil, .gov, .edu, or .ac.uk. (a link from one of these is rated better in certain ranking algorithms.)
- The Backlinks Analyzer tool also bolds and autochecks domains that link from 5 or more pages. You can then requery the Yahoo! database and spider deeper than the 1,000 link limit.
- The Backlinks Analyzer tool uses the Yahoo! API, provides CSV outputs.
- Special thanks to Aaron Wall for making this great tool.
Be sure to check out the BackLink Analyzer Tool!
From CNet News:
Podcasts are to bloggers what MySpace sites are to teens: All the cool kids have one. So Forrester probably expected a big reaction with a new report that claims podcasts are not exactly taking the wired world by storm.
The research firm’s new study claims that only 1 percent of online households in North America regularly download and listen to podcasts.
Forrester analyst Charlene Li says on her blog that while there’s definitely a business case for podcasts, companies “shouldn’t be dashing out to create expensive original content for a small audience–unless they gain value from being seen as innovative.”
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