Another year of the Prague DevCon just finished. News [July 5, 2008 19:28]
From Prague DevCon: "This year it has been a fresh and successful combination of Visual FoxPro conference with the new SQL Server DevCon. The organizers are now keen on going through the evaluations to make sure this wonderful union can be repeated next year. The first estimates on the attendee count reach around 430. This all by itself is about 30% increase in comparison with the last year. There was a total of 50 sessions, out of which 20 were FoxPro-only related, 23 SQL-related and the remain...

Google Faces U.K. Privacy Fight Over Street View News [July 5, 2008 19:28]
From RealTechNews: "As Google prepares to launch Street View in the U.K., and has already launched it in France, concerns over privacy have been raised by the group Privacy International, which says it feels Street View violates privacy laws. You’ll recall that Canada, which has very strong privacy protections in place (for example, a study has said that DRM violates privacy law), has already raised such concerns."

Storm botnet stages Fourth of July attacks News [July 5, 2008 19:28]
From ComputerWorld: "As predicted, hackers tried to trick users into downloading the Storm bot Trojan Friday by unleashing a flood of Fourth of July spam bearing links to malicious sites, several security companies reported. The spam campaign, anticipated earlier in the week by MX Logic Inc., used messages with subject headings ranging from "Amazing firework 2008" and "Celebrating Fourth of July" to "Light up the sky" and "Spectacular fireworks show," said U.K.-based Sophos Plc. in an alert post...

A wrapper class for SMTP Downloads [July 5, 2008 18:43]
This is a class to send emails with minimum effort while allowing for multiple To, Cc, Bcc and Attachments. You will need to also modify your web.config to work with your SMTP provider i.e. the settings you would use on your Outlook Account settings.

Lithuania: Attacks focused on hosting company News [July 4, 2008 22:35]
From ComputerWorld: "A vulnerability in a Web server contributed to attacks on some 300 Web sites in Lithuania earlier this week, a computer security expert said on Friday. The Web sites were defaced after Lithuania passed a law prohibiting the public display of symbols dating from the Soviet Union era, as well as the playing of the Soviet national anthem. The attacks, which started on Sunday and subsided by Monday, saw many Web sites defaced with pro-Soviet slogans and symbols in an apparent re...

Next Patch Tuesday has few security updates, big Vista reliability fix News [July 4, 2008 22:25]
From BetaNews: "In its monthly advance notice the weekend before the second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft said it will only be addressing four security issues this time around, two dealing with Windows. But a surprisingly big Vista bug fix is under way."

The reason for the last Firefox 2 release: multiple security fixes News [July 4, 2008 22:25]
From BetaNews: "In a clever and, in retrospect, appropriate handling of what might otherwise have been categorized as a security mess, Mozilla released a new build of Firefox 2 on Tuesday, just prior to its acknowledgment of no fewer than twelve security vulnerabilities affecting prior versions, discovered by twelve separate sources. As it turns out, version 2.0.0.15 contains the fix for those problems."

Five ways to keep your PC cool on a hot summer day News [July 4, 2008 22:22]
From ArsTechnica: "Turn the damn thing off. This is the single-most important action one can take to reduce total system power consumption. Many people (myself included) tend to leave the system on 24/7. Cool'N'Quiet/SpeedStep reduce idle power consumption, but it still adds up over time."

Bandwidth caps could lead to ISPs benefiting from piracy News [July 4, 2008 22:22]
From ArsTechnica: "Bandwidth caps are almost universally loathed, except by the companies that implement them. Consumers hate them because they have to treat the Internet not as an inexhaustable resource, but as something that's doled out to them. Each page they view, video they watch, or song they stream moves the needle closer to zero with the resultant overage charges. Tech companies don't like them either. Video services such as Joost and Vuze rely on P2P to deliver their goods, and that, to...

Enhanced Tabs for PageFrames Downloads [July 4, 2008 19:17]
Enhanced Tabs for PageFrames -- Tabs at top or bottom of frame; hidden or shown by setting a property of page; horizontal scroll buttons if tabs don't all fit; highlighting (font, color, bold) for the active page; tabs inherit ToolTipText property of their page; multi-line captions; tabs may include pictures; the entire group of tabs may be left or right justified, or centered; space can be reserved to the left or right of the group of tabs The Pageframe works and appears as usual during desi...

AVG Fakes User Agent, Floods the Internet News [July 3, 2008 23:23]
From Slashdot: "Slimy anti-virus provider AVG is spamming the internet with deceptive traffic pretending to be Internet Explorer. Essentially, users of the software automatically pre-crawl search results, which is bad, but they do so with an intentionally generic user agent. This is flooding websites with meaningless traffic (on Slashdot, we're seeing them as like 6% of our page traffic now). Best of all, they change their UA to avoid being filtered by websites who are seeing massive increases i...

Who Is Running The Most Secure Browser? News [July 3, 2008 23:23]
From eWeek: "Many users are undoubtedly not updating their browsers as quickly as they should, but you can't conclude any specifics about that from the recent study of Google logs. The researchers who published a large study of web browser security this week had a great idea and excellent data to work with."

Keylogging malware steals 50GB of passwords News [July 3, 2008 23:23]
From HackInTheBox: "Writers of a password-stealing Trojan horse program have managed to infect hundreds of thousands of computers - including more than 14,000 within one unnamed global hotel chain - by waiting for system administrators to log onto infected PCs and then using a Microsoft administration tool to spread their malicious software throughout the network."

Microsoft promises four patches next week News [July 3, 2008 23:23]
From ComputerWorld: "Microsoft Corp. on Thursday chalked in four security updates for next week that would fix vulnerabilities in Windows, SQL Server and Exchange Server. All four were labeled "important," the company's second-highest ranking, even though one of the Windows updates will quash a bug that attackers could use to execute malicious code remotely. That kind of vulnerability has been regularly rated as "critical" by Microsoft in the past."

Mozilla's Firefox 3 sets geeky world record for downloads News [July 3, 2008 23:23]
From ComputerWorld: "It's official: Mozilla Corp. has set possibly the geekiest world record ever with the release of Firefox 3. The open-source company said Wednesday that the browser's 8,002,530 downloads in its first 24 hours of release set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in that period of time."

Opera patches multiple bugs in flagship browser News [July 3, 2008 23:23]
From ComputerWorld: " Opera Software ASA patched the newest version of its flagship browser for the first time yesterday when it released Opera 9.5.1 to fix several flaws. The update patches bugs in the Windows, Mac OS X and Linux editions, said Opera in notes posted to its Web site. "

Gartner Revises Server Share Numbers News [July 3, 2008 23:23]
From eWeek: "Gartner has handed the server revenue crown back to IBM. On July 3, the Gartner issued a statement that revised its server revenue numbers for the first quarter of 2008. The findings now place IBM in the number one spot and Hewlett-Packard has been pushed down to second place although HP shipped more units than any other system vendor."

Welcome back to the annual Prague’s DevCon! News [July 3, 2008 23:22]
From Prague DevCon: "This year it is a very special one. Or should I say special two? In addition to the traditional Visual FoxPro DevCon, which is in its 11th version this year, there is also a new conference taking place here, the SQL Server DevCon. Joining these two, both database focused topics, promises to be very a valuable combination."

Microsoft: Silverlight content is searchable, too News [July 2, 2008 23:25]
From ZDNet: "When Adobe, Google and Yahoo announced earlier this week that content stored in its Flash file format would be more easily indexable by Google’s and Yahoo’s search engines, Microsoft was nowhere to be found. I seemed to recall that the Redmondians and their backers, when comparing Silverlight to Flash, had touted before that Silverlight content was easily discoverable by search engines (and not just Live Search’s)."

Australia shows US how a real broadband strategy works News [July 2, 2008 23:25]
From ArsTechnica: "Australia's government has launched an ambitious effort to build a new fiber-to-the-node national network that will provide at least 12Mbps connections to 98 percent of Australia's population. The two percent who won't have access will be covered under a program called the "Australian Broadband Guarantee" that provides funds to ISPs working in underserved areas."

Gartner: Seven cloud-computing security risks News [July 2, 2008 23:25]
From InfoWorld: "Cloud computing is fraught with security risks, according to analyst firm Gartner. Smart customers will ask tough questions and consider getting a security assessment from a neutral third party before committing to a cloud vendor, Gartner says in a June report titled "Assessing the Security Risks of Cloud Computing." Cloud computing has "unique attributes that require risk assessment in areas such as data integrity, recovery, and privacy, and an evaluation of legal issues in ar...

On indexing Flash content, Microsoft silent News [July 2, 2008 23:25]
From CNet: "Adobe Systems announced on Monday that it was taking steps to make Flash content on the Web more easily indexed by search engines. It touted deals with both Yahoo and Google, the top two search engines. Curiously absent was any statement about whether Microsoft would do likewise with its Live Search. I was hoping that Microsoft might clear up the matter, but its response was "no comment."

Applicant numbers for IT teacher training still falling News [July 2, 2008 23:25]
From ZDNet: "The number of students applying to start postgraduate teacher-training courses in IT this academic year continues to slide. The latest statistics from the Graduate Teacher Training Registry (GTTR) showing for IT the second worst decline among secondary school subjects. Speaking last month, a leading academic called for the IT curriculum in schools to be overhauled, claiming "boring" ICT classes which focus on Word and Excel are turning teenagers off IT as a career. As it turns out, ...

Intel: an expensive many-core future is ahead of us News [July 2, 2008 23:25]
From ArsTechnica: "Intel has bad news for software developers. It's been hinted at already, but now the company has stated explicitly: it's not enough for software developers to be targeting dual, quad, or eight cores. No, the future holds tens, hundreds, or thousands of cores, and developers are going to have to bite the bullet and write programs that will scale to such systems."

Southwest Fox 2008 Early Bird Deadline Extended News [July 2, 2008 23:09]
From SWFox: "The deadline for the "early bird" discount for Southwest Fox 2008, to be held October 16-19, 2008 in Mesa, AZ, has been extended to July 7th. See the conference blog (http://swfox.net/blog/index.htm) to learn why. Visit the conference site (http://www.swfox.net) to learn about the conference, speakers and topics, and to register."

40% of surfers don't bother with browser security updates News [July 1, 2008 22:31]
From ArsTechnica: "A recent study collaborative study between Google, the Swiss Federal Insitute of Technology, and IBM offers new insight into how many people surfing the web are doing so safely. According to the report, a clear majority of users (some 59 percent) are using the latest version of their preferred Internet browser—but that still leaves 40.1 percent who aren't. That's a troublingly high number for anyone working in IT security, given that virtually all (89.4 percent) of the vulnera...

Microsoft buys Powerset, gets foot in semantic search door News [July 1, 2008 22:31]
From ArsTechnica: "While Google and Yahoo focus on indexing Flash sites, Microsoft has other search plans up its sleeve. As the rumors have foretold, Microsoft announced today that it has acquired Powerset and plans to integrate the company's search and natural language features into Live Search. The San Francisco-based company's employees will remain in place, but will become part of Microsoft's Search Relevance team."

The rising cost of texting News [July 1, 2008 22:31]
From CNet: "If you thought gas prices were rising too quickly, check out what's been happening to text messaging. Since 2005, rates to send and receive text messages on all four major carrier networks have doubled from 10 cents to 20 cents per message. This percentage of increase is on par with similar price hikes at the gas pump as crude oil prices skyrocket. In 2005, Americans paid on average about $2.27 per gallon for gas compared with more than $4 a gallon today."

We love interoperability: 50K-page Microsoft document dump News [June 30, 2008 23:24]
From ArsTechnica: "Microsoft announced today that it has delivered on a number of promises it made earlier this year regarding the interoperability and openness of its products. Among them are 1.0 releases of technical documentation on the protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Microsoft also released 5,000 pages of new documentation today on the binary file formats in Office, putting the company well down the path...

Survey: More than 10,000 laptops lost each week at airports News [June 30, 2008 23:24]
From ComputerWorld: "Keep laptops close at airports, because they have a startling tendency to disappear in the blink of an eye, according to a new survey. Some of the largest and medium-size U.S. airports report close to 637,000 laptops lost each year, according to a Ponemon Institute survey released today. Laptops are most commonly lost at security checkpoints, according to the survey."

Will Picasa become Google Photos? News [June 30, 2008 23:24]
From CNet: "There are signs Picasa Web Albums could be renamed Google Photos. Google Operating System noticed several references to the term in the code that powers the Web site. Picasa also is the name of software Google offers for free to perform basic photo editing and to upload photos to the Web site."

Backup Becomes a Standard PC Feature News [June 30, 2008 23:24]
From eWeek: "We all knew it was critical to back up our PCs, but only now is it becoming easy and practical. OEMs are beginning to get involved. PCs crash every now and then. We do what we can to prevent it, but we also have to prepare for when it happens. Any business that doesn't have an effective backup plan, one that has been tested and has at least some off-site component, is being irresponsible."

XP is dead; long live XP News [June 30, 2008 23:24]
From ZDNet: "Monday is the last day on which Windows XP will be sold as a boxed product or licensed to PC manufacturers. However, 30 June is not the end of the road for the venerable operating system, which was introduced back in 2001. Although Microsoft is keen for users to switch to XP's successor, Windows Vista, that operating system has not been the success that was hoped for by Redmond."

Netgear Debuts Open-Source Router News [June 30, 2008 23:24]
From ExtremeTech: "On Monday, Netgear announced the WGR614L, what might be the world's first native open-source consumer router. It's unclear whether or not the Netgear router is the first to be truly open source.XORP has offered an open-source software package designed to replace the firmware found on most routers. Vyatta, meanwhile, offers its own hardware along with its own software platform, although the company's products are more geared toward the SMB marketplace."

Google gets map happy with Tele Atlas News [June 30, 2008 23:24]
From Silicon.com: "Google and mapping company Tele Atlas have tied up a five-year deal to share mapping data across more than 200 countries. Google will have access to maps and dynamic content from Tele Atlas to use on mobile and online applications. These applications include Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Maps for Mobile."

Google plugs YouTube into Playstation 3 News [June 29, 2008 23:33]
From TheRegister: "To the surprise of no one, Google is now offering software that streams video, photos, and music from your PC to your television. "In the old days, we used to watch a simple device called a television. Nowadays, all the stuff worth watching and listening to tends to be stored on or accessed through a computer," writes software engineer David Garcia on the Google Desktop blog. "To help remedy this, we are pleased to release the Google Media Server."

The SSD Power Consumption Hoax News [June 29, 2008 23:33]
From Tom's Hardware: "Flash-based solid state drives (SSDs) are considered to be the future of performance hard drives, and everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. We are no exception, as we have been publishing many articles on flash-based SSDs during the last few months, emphasizing the performance gains and the potential power savings brought by flash memory. And there is nothing wrong with this, since SLC flash SSDs easily outperform conventional hard drives today (SLC = single level ...

Laptop use helps spur adoption of 802.11n News [June 29, 2008 23:33]
From ComputerWorld: "Products that support the 802.11n wireless networking standard are starting to take off, with vendors reporting acceleration in shipments, according to Infonetics Research. "It looks like enterprise Wi-Fi products will migrate from 802.11g to 802.11n as rapidly as 802.11b products migrated to 802.11g several years ago," said Richard Webb, directing analyst at Infonetics."

Visual Studio .Net Programmer with VFP Jobs [June 29, 2008 12:36]
2 + years experience. Visual Basic and/or C# and MS SQL. Database management experience a plus. Manage data conversions and standardization for large databases and participate in new web service based software development. Previous VFP and ASP experience highly desirable. Excellent technical and non-technical communication skills required. Email .doc/.txt/.rtf copy of your current resume to ftna86@hotmail.com

West Wind Web Connection 5.37 available News [June 28, 2008 10:32]
Frpm West Wind: "It's time for another update to West Wind Web Connection - this time Version 5.37. This release provides a host of small bug fixes and a few new and useful features for the Web Control Framework as well as a few enhancements to the core framework.We're doing it again this year - there will be a two day training seminar just prior to the Southwest Fox conference in Arizona this year. The two days are suitable for beginners and advanced Web Connection developers alike as we start ...

Data centers explore novel ways to cut energy use News [June 28, 2008 10:32]
From ComputerWorld: "Putting data centers on decommissioned ships and reusing hot water from cooling systems to fill the town swimming pool were among the wackier ideas floated at the Data Center Energy Summit on Thursday. Data center operators came together to compare notes about the best ways to tackle rising energy consumption at their facilities. Ideas ranged from the exotic to the more down to earth, like improving air-flow management and using outside air in colder climates to cool equipme...

Google gadget turns PC into media server News [June 28, 2008 10:32]
From CNet: "Google has released a software module that can turn Windows PCs into devices that streams media files to other devices. The Google Media Server is a gadget that works on the Google Desktop software. It sends the data to other devices over a Universal Plug-and-Play connection such as a Sony PlayStation 3, according to the Google Desktop blog."

History lesson: The origins of wiki, blog and other high-tech lingo News [June 28, 2008 10:26]
From ComputerWorld: "Technology we take for granted today was new not so long ago, and somebody had to name it. Though sometimes it's hard to pin down exactly who deserves the credit — or blame — here's a shot a some of the more familiar terms. "

Cheap ink: Will it cost you? News [June 27, 2008 23:08]
From ComputerWorld: "Buying replacement ink from a third-party vendor can save you big bucks. But will you pay with lousy-looking prints that fade in no time? We did months of testing to find out. Razor-blade makers sell consumers the shaver at low prices and then make a killing selling replacement blades. Printer manufacturers do the same thing -- selling their printers on the cheap and then making bank on expensive consumables like ink."

The SSD Power Consumption Hoax News [June 27, 2008 23:07]
From Tom's Hardware: "Flash-based solid state drives (SSDs) are considered to be the future of performance hard drives, and everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. We are no exception, as we have been publishing many articles on flash-based SSDs during the last few months, emphasizing the performance gains and the potential power savings brought by flash memory. And there is nothing wrong with this, since SLC flash SSDs easily outperform conventional hard drives today (SLC = single level ...

Intel: We'll Stick With XP, Thanks News [June 27, 2008 23:07]
From TechNewsWorld: "If Intel won't even adopt Windows Vista, why would anyone else? An Intel insider told The New York Times that the company is not likely to switch its employees' computers to the latest Windows version. Officially, Intel is distancing itself from the report and expressing support for Windows."

Fiji government official tells Microsoft: ‘Fiji’ is not for sale News [June 27, 2008 22:58]
From ZDNet: "If you thought it was tough before to get Microsoft to talk about “Fiji,” the next version of Windows Media Center Edition, now it’s going to be next-to-impossible to get anyone in Redmond to utter the “F” word. According to a story in The Fiji Times Online, the Attorney General of Fiji, Aiyaz Sayed-Kaiyum , was worried Microsoft was going to name the next version of Windows “Fiji.” He was concerned enough to write Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates."

Do you need to be a programmer to run a software company? News [June 27, 2008 22:58]
From ZDNet: "The parade of articles and blog posts on Bill Gates’ legacy continue to roll out as Gates’ last day as a full-time employee (June 27) rapidly approaches. Joel Spolsky, the CEO of Fog Creek Software — and a one-time member of Microsoft’s Excel team back in the early 1990s (Microsoft’s “glory days”) — has a really great look back at the significance of the famed “BillG” reviews."

Would Microsoft ever split itself up? News [June 27, 2008 22:57]
From ZDNet: "Conventional wisdom has it that Microsoft’s brass would never choose to break up the company — even in the name of making it more agile. After all, when Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, as part of the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust case against Redmond, ruled in 2000 that Microsoft should be forced to be halved (into an operating system and application company — a judgement later overruled — Chairman Bill Gates & Co. was dead-set against such a plan."

Never talk on family vacations again: Chrysler's in-car WiFi News [June 26, 2008 16:40]
From ArsTechnica: "Chrysler announced today that in-car Internet hotspots would be available as an option on all new models for around $500. The service, offered through Autonet Mobile, combines a cellular EVDO modem with a WiFi hotspot to offer constant conductivity within a 100 foot radius of the vehicle—making it "convenient to access the Internet at a soccer field or family picnic," according to the announcement."