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Monthly Archive:: December 2010

KDE Announces the Calligra Suite

"The KDE community today announces the start of the Calligra Suite project, a continuation of the KOffice project. The new name reflects the wider value of the KOffice technology platform beyond just desktop office applications. With a new name for the Suite and new names for the productivity applications, the Calligra community welcomes a new stage in the development of free productivity and creativity applications for desktop and mobile devices."

MSR Develops ‘Zozzle’ JavaScript Malware Detection Tool

"As browser-based exploits and specifically JavaScript malware have shouldered their way to the top of the list of threats, browser vendors have been scrambling to find effective defenses to protect users. Few have been forthcoming, but Microsoft Research has developed a new tool called Zozzle that can be deployed in the browser and can detect JavaScript-based malware at a very high effectiveness rate."

12 Programming Mistakes to Avoid

InfoWorld's Peter Wayner outlines the 12 most common programming mistakes, and how to avoid them. "Certain programming practices send the majority of developers reaching for their hair upon opening a file that has been exhibiting too much 'character'. Spend some time in a bar near any tech company, and you'll hear the howls: Why did the programmer use that antiquated structure? Where was the mechanism for defending against attacks from the Web? Wasn't any thought given to what a noob would do with the program?" Wayner writes. From playing it fast and loose, to delegating too much to frameworks, to relying too heavily on magic boxes, to overdetermining the user experience - each programming pitfall is accompanied by its opposing pair, lending further proof that "programming may in fact be transforming into an art, one that requires a skilled hand and a creative mind to achieve a happy medium between problematic extremes".

Amazon Launches New DNS Service in the Cloud

Amazon Web Services announced Route 53, a DNS web service giving a way to route Internet traffic to web applications by translating human readable names into numeric IP addresses. Amazon Route 53 can be used to route end users to multiple AWS services including Amazon EC2, an Amazon Elastic Load Balancer or an Amazon S3 bucket, and to infrastructure outside of AWS. The Amazon Route 53 global network of DNS servers is designed to automatically respond from the optimal network location, resulting in low DNS query latency for end users.

Avast! Pro License Key Used Illegally 774651 Times

It's no secret that I'm not a particular fan of antivirus software vendors. Other than the excellent Microsoft offering, I haven't yet seen a single antivirus program that doesn't suck the life out of computers, infesting every corner, making machines slow and full of annoying pop-ups. Still, a single license key for Avast! Pro being shared 774651 times? That's a bit harsh.

Twitter Appears to Censor Wikileaks-Related Trends

I'm (was?) a Twitter user. This past week I found it utterly weird that none of the words #wikileaks, #cablegate, #cables, #Assange were actually "trending". I even tweeted about this 5 days ago. Today, my fears of secret censorship seem to be coming true. It appears that Twitter is censoring all these words, so they don't appear in the (much-used) Twitter "trends" list. Update 1: A Twitter staffer replied to the blog post saying that their trending algorithm doesn't always result to the most popular terms. Update 2: More investigation about what might be going on.

Potential NVIDIA/Intel Settlement Good News for Apple

"The licensing dispute that has prevented NVIDIA from building controller chips for Intel's latest CPUs may finally be coming to a close. Late last week, a Bloomberg report cited inside sources that claim the two companies are in talks to settle the matter out of court. While both Intel and NVIDIA would benefit from a settlement - for instance, by avoiding legal fees for protracted litigation - Apple also stands to gain."

Oracle Highlights Solaris Unix Plans

Oracle executives talked up on Thursday the planned Solaris 11 release due in 2011, with the Unix OS upgrade offering advancements in availability, security, and virtualization. The OS will feature next-generation networking capabilities for scalability and performance, said John Fowler, Oracle executive vice president of systems, at a company event in Santa Clara, Calif. "It's a complete reworking of enterprise OS," he said. Oracle took over Solaris when the company acquired Sun Microsystems early this year.

15 Free Windows Tools for Every Desktop

If you haven't looked at the Windows utilities landscape lately, you're in for a big surprise. Many of the old favorites have changed, bringing new features to Windows 7, as well as XP. Others have fallen by the wayside, replaced by upstarts that deliver meaningful functionality that once cost big bucks. With that reality in mind, Woody Leonhard has picked the 15 free Windows utilities everyone should have.

Microsoft Announces Silverlight 5 Beta for First Half 2011

"In a keynote presentation at the Silverlight Firestarter event this morning, Corporate Vice President in Microsoft's developer division, Scott Guthrie officially announced Silverlight 5, and outlined its new features and 1H 2011 beta availability. Silverlight 5 adds more than 40 new features to the Web application framework that focus on improving its streaming media functionality for users and on improving application development for engineers. Some of the new streaming additions include: GPU-accelerated video decoding, variable speed playback which allows for user-defined, pitch-corrected slow motion, improved power saver awareness to prevent screensavers from turning on during playback, and native remote control support."

Where’s WikiLeaks? The ‘Infowar’ Is on as Site Hops Servers

Guess I'm not the only one who thinks a war is brewing between 'the internet' and the establishment. "Early this morning, the WikiLeaks Twitter feed reposted a tweet from EFF cofounder John Perry Barlow. 'The first serious infowar is now engaged,' Barlow wrote. 'The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops.' Barlow is no stranger to theatrical overstatement; this, after all, is the guy who in 1996 penned "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" that opened with the lines: 'Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.' Barlow was wrong about sovereignty. Despite its name, 'cyberspace' runs on physical infrastructure that sits in various governmental jurisdictions, and when sites like Wikileaks start irritating those governments, sovereignty is quite powerfully brought to bear. Still, his recent tweet is accurate. There's a war on for WikiLeaks, and it's being fought all over the world."

Xbox-Modding Case Dismissed Mid-Trial

"Federal authorities in the first-of-its-kind game-console-modding criminal trial abruptly dropped their prosecution Thursday, "based on fairness and justice." Following procedural rulings made by the presiding judge in the aftermath of his 30-minute tirade yesterday, it emerged that a key witness, an employee of the Entertainment Software Alliance, had provided a pirated game to the defendant during the course of his investigation. As this detail had been known to the government for almost a week but had been withheld from the defense, prosecutors had no choice but to move for a dismissal."

MorphOS 2.7 Released

MorphOS 2.7 has been released, and it's mostly a bug-fix release. The one thing that stood out to me is that some work has gone into fixing bugs for several PowerPC G4 chips - more specifically, models used in PowerBook G4s. MorphOS has been demonstrated on the PowerBook G4, but official support for it has not been released yet.

Flash Player 10.2 Beta Delivers Hardware Acceleration on Linux

The sweet smell of competition is lingering in the air. That sweet smell which indicates that somewhere in the vicinity a company is working on actually improving a product so we can all benefit. This time around, it's Adobe, delivering the first Flash 10.2 beta. Prime feature? Complete hardware acceleration of the entire video pipeline - fully cross platform, cross-form factor. Cross-platform! There's a catch, though.

Rambus Sues Everyone

"Rambus, a designer of memory and interface technologies, on Wednesday accused a list of companies of patent infringements again. The company accused the defendants of illegal usage of memory-related intellectual property and said that the semiconductor companies infringe its rights by implementing a number of widely used industrial standards. The tech designer demands ITC to stop importation of chips that infringe its patents and products on their base."

Xbox-Modding Judge Berates Prosecution, Puts Trial on Hold

Opening statements in the first-of-its kind Xbox 360 criminal hacking trial were delayed here Wednesday after a federal judge unleashed a 30-minute tirade at prosecutors in open court, saying he had "serious concerns about the government's case". "I really don't understand what we’re doing here," US District Judge Philip Gutierrez roared from the bench. Gutierrez slammed the prosecution over everything from alleged unlawful behavior by government witnesses, to proposed jury instructions harmful to the defense.

Symbian Foundation To Take Source Code Offline on Dec. 17

"Symbian Foundation has started dismantling itself. On Dec.17 the organization will shut down its websites, and anyone who wants to get the source code for the current version of the Symbian mobile operating system should download it now or they will have to pay for a copy to be shipped on physical media in the future, its website. Nokia will take over development of Symbian OS, the company said on Nov. 8. The Symbian Foundation will become a licensing operation only."