Pc News

[Rasputin]

Microsoft Opens IE Bug Database

Microsoft has established a public database to allow Internet Explorer users to report bugs in the Web browser.

To post or view bugs, users must sign up for a Passport account on the Microsoft Connect Web site.

Microsoft plans to allow non-registered users to view reported bugs in a couple of months, according to a post on the Internet Explorer Weblog.

User Requests

The company said it opened up the site in response to user feedback.


"Many customers have asked us about having a better way to enter IE bugs. It is asked, "Why don't you have Bugzilla like Firefox or other groups do?" said the Microsoft blog post.


Microsoft has posted a best practices guide for posting bugs and allows users to restrict access to bug posts by marking them as private instead of public.

[Rasputin]

EBay Shuts Down Site Selling Account Info

EBay helped to shut down a Russian Web site last week that was offering to sell stolen customer account information for as little as $5 each.

Armed with an eBay customer's login and password, a fraudster could post items for sale, collect payments, and then never deliver the goods. The site was also offering to sell a handful of PayPal accounts.


Security vendor Sunbelt Software detected the site last Tuesday and reported it to eBay, which worked with the local ISP to have it taken offline, an eBay spokeswoman confirmed. She couldn't say how many user accounts were offered for sale or whether any customers' accounts had been misused.


The site probably collected the information through phishing attacks or a Trojan horse virus that plants keylogging software on users' PCs, said Alex Eckelberry, president of Sunbelt, in Clearwater, Florida.

[Rasputin]

Fujitsu Plans 200GB Laptop Hard Drive

Fujitsu expects to begin shipping a 200GB hard drive suitable for use in laptop computers in the third quarter of this year, it said Monday.

Based on that schedule the drive could be available in computers for end-users within the year. That's earlier than Fujitsu predicted last year when it said such drives wouldn't be available until 2007.


The current highest capacity 2.5-inch drive from Fujitsu can accommodate up to 160GB of data so the new drive will represent an increase in storage capacity of 25 percent. Like the 160GB drive, the new model will have a Serial ATA interface and is primarily aimed at entertainment and multimedia laptops, which often need a large storage area for video files.

[Rasputin]

Lycos Enters Internet Phone Fray

Lycos plans to launch on Monday a VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) phone application, its first serious entry in years to the now red-hot market of Internet telephony.

Lycos Phone, which will compete directly with similar offerings from Yahoo and eBay's Skype unit, is based on technology from Axill Europe, whose Globe7 application Lycos is licensing.


The companies have entered intro a 3-year exclusive deal, during which Axill has agreed to not license Globe7 to any other major portal, including Yahoo, Google, Microsoft's MSN, and Time Warner's America Online.


Lycos is confident that its Globe7-based service will distinguish itself from the pack through a collection of entertainment and interactive features that aim to complement its core Internet phone functionality, says Brian Kalinowski, Lycos' chief operating officer.

[Rasputin]

Google gains search share, widens lead on Yahoo

NEW YORK - Web search leader Google Inc. gained an additional 6 percentage points of the U.S. search market based on total queries, widening its lead last month against Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, according to data released on Tuesday.

Google's share of the search market rose to 42.3 percent in February from 36.3 percent a year earlier, according to data provided by tracking firm ComScore.

Searches on Yahoo Internet sites represented 27.6 percent of the market, down from 31.1 percent a year earlier, while queries on MSN fell to 13.5 percent from 16.3 percent.

IAC/InterActiveCorp.'s Ask.com was the only other search engine to gain share, to 6 percent of the market from 5.3 percent a year earlier.

Industry analysts picked up on the data, citing it as a strong sign for Google in its rivalry for advertising revenue. An overall 11 percent increase in total search queries for the month also bodes well for the sector, they said.

[Rasputin]

Microsoft Cuts Price of MSN Dial-Up

Microsoft is offering an almost 20 percent discount on its MSN Dial-Up service's regular price, plus a free month of service, partly to nab America Online dial-up subscribers unhappy with a recent price hike, Microsoft announced Tuesday.

U.S. residents who sign up between now and June 30 will get their first month free, and for the next 12 months they'll be charged $17.95 per month, instead of $21.95. The offer doesn't require subscribers to commit to a full year of service. After the first 13 months of service, the discounted rate will lapse and the subscriber will thereafter be charged the regular monthly fee. The offer doesn't apply to current MSN Dial-Up subscribers.


The move comes little more than a month after rival AOL announced its decision to increase the price of its most popular unlimited dial-up access plan to $25.90 per month in order to nudge subscribers towards adopting its new High Speed broadband service.

[gg666]

شریف نیوز:سایت یاهو هک شد.
به گزارش شریف نیوز، سایت یاهو که یکی از بزرگترین و معتبرترین سایتهای شبکه جهانی محسوب میشود، امشب توسط هکرهای مسلمان و در اعتراض به اهانت روزنامههای غربی به مقدسات مسلمانان هک شد.
این سایت امشب (شنبه) برای نزدیك به یك ساعت در وضعیت مذكور قرار داشت

In The Name Of ALLAH
ISLAM is my religion
Don't Play With Our Religion
Hacked By Someone




Posted by niksalehi at February 19, 2006 05:05 PM

[Rasputin]

Microsoft ready to do more for EU

BRUSSELS - Microsoft wants to do more to meet European Commission remedies set after a 2004 antitrust decision, the company said at the start of a hearing on whether it should be fined for not adhering to that verdict.

"Microsoft are willing to do more but cannot do this alone. Daily fines are not the solution," the software giant's top lawyer, Brad Smith, told reporters on Thursday.

Microsoft faces daily fines of up to 2 million euros ($2.4 million) for what the Commission says are delays in implementing remedies after the EU executive decided the company had abused the dominance of its Windows operating system to hurt rivals.

The two-day closed hearing will hear Microsoft's argument that it is complying with the decision, the Commission's view and opinions of third parties such as associations representing Microsoft rivals and technology pressure groups.

[Rasputin]

TV downloads break new barrier with "Scrubs" deal

LOS ANGELES - In another first for the fledgling world of "on-demand" television, NBC and the sister studio of rival network ABC have teamed up to make a prime-time show of shared interest, "Scrubs," available for Internet downloads.

The NBC hospital comedy, produced by Disney-ABC Television Group's Touchstone Television, has been added to the catalog of shows that can be purchased as a download from Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes music store for $1.99 per episode.

While TV series for network broadcast are routinely produced by and licensed from studios of competing media companies, the "Scrubs" deal marks the first such partnership for a prime-time program offered via the Internet for commercial download, NBC and ABC said on Wednesday.

Until now, programs made available for online purchase, like ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and NBC's "The Office," have all been productions of their respective "in-house" television studios.

[Rasputin]

Apple offers way to limit iPod volume

Apple Computer Inc. said on Wednesday it introduced a software update for its market-leading iPod that lets parents set maximum volume limits on the device, as concerns grow that loud music played through earphones might risk hearing loss.

The software update, which is available as a free download for the iPod nano and fifth generation iPod, gives users the ability to set volume caps on the iPod and lock it with a combination code, Apple said.

The move follows a class action lawsuit that was filed against Apple in a federal court in California in January, which claimed that iPods could cause hearing loss because they have the capacity to produce sounds in excess of 104 decibels and up to 115 decibels.

The National Institute of Health said earlier in March that more research is needed to determine whether portable music players like the iPod increase the risk of hearing loss, in response to a lawmaker's request for a review of the issue.

"With the increased attention in this area, we want to offer customers an easy-to-use option to set their own personal volume limit," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of iPod product marketing, in a statement.

The company said iPod users can get the software upgrade as a free download from www.apple.com/ipod/download.

[Rasputin]

Microsoft resumes antitrust fight

Microsoft, sounding an optimistic note, resumed its last-ditch fight on Friday against antitrust fines of up to 2 million euros a day proposed by the European Commission.

But its competitors, who have their say on the second and last day of the closed hearing, said the U.S. software giant's defense against the fines was not sufficient.

Microsoft faces fines because the Commission says it has not complied fully with a 2004 decision that the company abused the dominance of its Windows operating system to muscle competitors out of the market and must change its business practices.

In that decision, the Commission fined Microsoft almost half billion euros and ordered it to share information with rivals so they can make server software that runs as smoothly with Windows as Microsoft's own software.

"We had a very constructive dialogue yesterday. In fact I wish we could have had had this type of dialogue sooner," Microsoft's top lawyer, Brad Smith, told reporters before going into the hearing on Friday.

[Rasputin]

Google beefs up local advertising with logos

Internet search leader Google Inc. on Thursday began offering marketers more features for local advertising, allowing them to add logos and business information to their listings on a Google map.

Local advertising on the Internet is expected to be a prime driver of growth in the sector.

The new features allow an advertiser to insert a business logo or picture in a balloon that pops up next to its location on the Google map, as well as provide additional information in several lines of text, such as a phone number of business description.

It can be used by any advertiser targeting a local market, from a neighborhood plumber to the closest restaurant of a national fast-food chain.

"Since we launched maps last year, advertisers have come to us asking for more control on (Google) local," Dominic Preuss, product manager of local advertising at Google, told Reuters. "There has been really strong demand for this."

The Google Local service already provides textual information on a business when a user conducts a search, and a reference map with the street address.

[Rasputin]

Making Movies: Set Your Movies to Music

So you've just finished editing your vacation video, and you're going to put it online to show your friends and family. Now you want to add some music; perhaps a bit of thrash metal over the snowboarding footage, or how about "California Dreamin'" by The Mamas & The Papas to accompany your trip down the California coast? You stroll over to your CD collection, grab a couple of your favorite tunes, then drop them into the video and upload it to your Web site. It becomes the next viral video, and thousands of people are downloading it. And then the police kick down your door and throw you in prison for illegally distributing music.

Well, perhaps that's not quite how it would work out. What's more likely is that the video could get deleted from your Web site if the copyright holder complains to your hosting service.


Arguments about fair use aside, there's no disputing the fact that putting music you don't have permission to use into your videos is not a good idea. Especially in today's world, where people get sued for the illegal distribution of music. Fortunately, you don't have to risk it: There are thousands of pieces of music available online that you can use for free without risking any legal unpleasantness.

Art for Art's Sake

Many people create music simply because they want it to be heard; they either don't want to make any money from it, or they view it as a promotional tool to sell CDs. So they allow their work to be copied, streamed, and used pretty much anywhere, as long as they get credit for it.


The general term for this is "podsafe"--meaning that it's safe to use in a podcast. Web sites such as PodShow and Podsafe Audio contain thousands of tracks that can be used, though you should check the license on each track before you use it.


The music on these sites is often released under a Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial license, which means that you can copy and use it for any noncommercial purpose, as long as you include a credit for the musician. However, some people release their music under different types of licenses, some of which may prevent their use in a video. In particular, the Creative Commons Music Sharing license doesn't allow you to use the music in a video. Always check the license, which should be available on the same Web page from which you can download the music.

[Rasputin]

Microsoft lawyer sees breakthrough in EU hearing

Microsoft's top lawyer said on Friday he believed there had been a breakthrough in the software company's dispute with the European Commission at a hearing into the antitrust fines ordered by Brussels.



"As I said in the hearing, I believe that we have had a breakthrough," Brad Smith told reporters at the end of the two-day hearing.

He said Microsoft now had "greater clarity" regarding the antitrust case, which would help to bring about a solution.

[Rasputin]

iPod inspires Coke's planned outdoor splash

When the grand old man of consumer brands, Coke, found it had lost a little of its shimmer, it turned to the latest brand sensation -- iPod -- for inspiration.

The world's biggest soft drink company, Coca-Cola Co., is set to launch its new "Welcome to the Coke side of life" advertising blitz this weekend, but only after studying a new icon, Apple Computer Inc.'s popular iPod digital music player.

Analysts said the company that taught the world to sing with "The Real Thing" in the 1970s and struck a chord with "Have a Coke and a Smile" in the early 1980s is still struggling to find a new catchphrase and imagery that will stick.

Apart from a series of television ads, Coke will emphasize outdoor advertising more than it has in the past with a range of colorful wallscapes -- some as high as 200 feet -- depicting myriad colors and images splashing out of a Coke bottle.

Katie Bayne, senior vice president of Coca-Cola brands, told reporters during a presentation this week that Coke studied Apple's print and outdoor communication, noting that it had a lot of clarity.