UGN Info Manager UGN Info Manager
Over the past month we've seen several new spam schemes with subject lines like "From Bin Laden" and "Osama strikes again" -- but these turn out to be totally unrelated to the subject, or phishing spams. Then on Friday, a message was posted on over 30,000 Usenet newsgroups claiming to include images of Osama bin Laden's suicide. According to Sophos, a web security vendor, the post actually contains a Trojan horse. Wired has more on this story, but no one has yet to report on the Bin Laden spam scam, so you heard it here first ... wired.com
A employees at a Florida spammer (Snipermail.com) got into Acxiom's server to allegedly steal 8.2 gigabytes of consumer files in 2002 and 2003 -- but now have been trapped by the Feds. In what could be the largest theft of personal data ever, the consumer information was being used to feed Snipermail.com's e-mail spam business. Prosecutors said the stolen data included personal information about "a great number of individuals," but they added that the information wasn't used for identity fraud. See this week's Wired . . . Read more...
If you're a freshman at DUKE, you're in for a sweet ssurprise this fall -- a free iPod! No, it's not just for music. The iPods will be preloaded with such Duke-related content as information about orientation and the academic calendar; students also can download faculty-provided course content onto their 'pods.' The school estimates it will cost more than $500,000, which includes hiring a technician and the purchase of the iPods, among other research costs. An additional 150 iPods will be available for upperclassmen to borrow for courses that use the devices ... dukenews.duke.edu
PC Magazine has posted a 'first look' article of the 4th generation iPod. The article recaps the facts known about the new models, and includes pictures that compare it with older versions and offers a close-up view of the iPod mini-like click wheel. [Note: They also have an extensive guide to iPod 'wannabes' at: http://www.pcmag.com/print_article/0,1761,a=131324,00.asp Read more...
According to a new study, Apple is seeing considerable brand value growth -- the iPod has helped Apple Computer jump 24% in brand value. But we don't need to read the statistics to believe that -- the best indicator of success is when other brands start ripping you off. Just look in your Sunday news paper advertising supplements and see how many new devices are coming out that 'look' like iPods, or even mimicking the Titanium PowerBooks. The Mac Observer is reporting that Apple is threatening to take legal action against an upstart music channel if it doesn't stop a new ad campaign that resembles Apple's current iPod ads ... Read more...
Microsoft shareholders are now slated to get a one-time dividend of $3 per share from the company's $56 billion cash stash. MS is also planning to double its annual dividend to 32 cents per share -- then they plan to buy back up to $30 billion of the company's stock over the next four years. What's the tab? Up to $75 billion though dividends and stock buybacks. According to the execs however, the buyback and dividends will not affect the company's spending on research and development. ... Read more...
Friday, Microsoft announced plans to put its online magazine "Slate" up for sale. Reports say there are discussions with five or six buyers over the possible sale of online magazine ... go.hotwired.com
BugMeNot.com is a site that generates login names and passwords for registration sites -- for those who want to keep online anonymity or stamp out spam. According to the site's homepage, 14,000 website log-ins have been have been databased making it easy to avoid loggin in with your real identity. We tried the New York Times ID and it worked the first time. It's easy... when you arrive at the site simply key in the offending web site's web address and hit enter. The resulting ID supposedly allows you into the site. Two buttons allow you to try another 'backup' login or add your own ... BugMeNot.com
Gee Three, a company which produces software for Apple iMovie, has won "Best of Show" awards at the Boston Macworld conference for its Slick Volumes 7 and 8 line of transitions and effects for Apple iMovie software. The effects were licensed from Wildform, creators of video, animation and presentation software (www.wildform.com) ... www.geethree.com
Two 'hacker' authors will be signing copies of their books at DEFCON 12 -- the worldÕs largest underground hacking event, runs from July 30 to August 1 at the Alexis Park Resort in Las Vegas. Jon Erickson will be signing copies of his best-selling book Hacking: The Art of Exploitation on Saturday July 31 at 2 p.m. On Sunday August 1 at noon, Andrew "bunnie" Huang will be signing copies of Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering. For more information about DEFCON 12, and to see a complete schedule of events, visit ... www.defcon.org
If you're into the cutting edge avant gard, you may want to take a look at "Destructed" magazine. The second issue of this design zine is now available for download in PDF format. The topic of this issue was "magic" and a couple of very interesting works have been submitted by 14 participating artists and designers Beside the regular .pdf version there is also an enhanced version as .rar-file which contains the "magic" soundtrack composed by Max Basedow. The next issue of destructed.info will be online on 12.10.2004 and the topic of this issue is "maybe i want i all" ... www.destructed.info
Fred's son, Max, DJs "80s Night" and "Lady's Night" at popular bars in Norfolk VA, and reports Baytex Party!, the DJ application for OS X, truly rocks. He's now testing the upcoming v4 edition. If you need a killer DJ mixing board, with all the most important functions, check out PARTY!
FileXaminer v2.3, the award-winning File/Folder information utility for Mac OS X allows you to modify file and folder attributes that the Finder cannot ( ex. Type/Creator Info, UNIX permissions, and much more... ). FileXaminer is powerful and easy to use - making it the best "Get Info" application for Mac OS X. See website for release notes. It also eliminates the need to use Terminal, and makes changing attributes on files/folders a breeze ... gideonsoftworks.com
Snard v2.4.1 is the Swiss Army Knife of launcher programs you use as a system menu or as a hot key activated popup menu. Assign hot keys to Snard menu items, so no matter how you prefer to work - Snard works with you. There is a special upgrade price for registered users of Snard v1.x See website for release notes and pricing. Download a copy for yourself. You won't regret it ... Read more...
Traditional media love to look down their nose at bloggers. But at this year's Democratic convention, the 35 bloggers covering the festivities could liven things up. Hell, a couple of them could even become traditional media stars. Reported by Adam L. Penenberg in ... WIRED
The free collection of digital camera and digital photography tips covers many facets of the field, including tips on purchasing and buying only the equipment that you need. They also offer advice for those who desire to purchase high-end items to get the most out of their digital camera ...
Blasting through the plethora of stock photography web sites comes something different for a change: a smaller, more intimate site that offers new, fresh stock photography for less ... PhotoStockhouse
PC-Mac PasswordVault v3.2 securely stores website usernames and passwords, Internet banking data and software registration details for convenient and easy access on Windows, MacOS X, MacOS Classic and Linux (x86) computers ... PasswordVault
Wildform, creators of video, animation and presentation software, have announced that Gee Three, a company which produces software for Apple iMovie, has won "Best of Show" awards at the Boston Macworld conference ... Gee Three
iClip is a multiple clipboard/scrapbook/launcher application designed to improve user efficiency and productivity for various computing tasks. iClip functions as a floating window that allows users to store and retrieve various clippings, such as text, pictures, URLs, file aliases, movies, etc ... iClip
StockBucket.com has been selected by HOW Magazine as one of the "Top 10" sites to see this month ... StockBucket
Apple has announced that it has signed licensing agreements with three of the largest European independent music labels, Beggars Group, Sanctuary Records Group and V2, adding tens of thousands of additional independent tracks from leading artists to the iTunes Music Store in the UK, France and Germany ... Read more...
Did you ever wonder what made that presentation so good?" or "Why did that presentation really suck?" The key is in relevancy, consistency, continuity and decoration. If you are responsible for presentations, but have no formal communication design training, perhaps you will want to consider looking at a templates package like ... Powerbacks
The PandaWare Company has released a free update to its popular time tracking and billing application, TimeCache, for Macintosh OS X and Classic ... PandaWare
If you are viewing a Web site with your browser and you decide that you would like to make a copy of it on your hard drive, you have to manually save each page, or now use Web Dumper ... Web Dumper v2.2
New FileMaker Pro 7 plug-in lets you manipulate your files and folders and use file and folder information directly from your databases -- can now support Unicode and more and bigger parameters ... Troi File Plug-in Boosted for FileMaker
Have a great week...
User Group Network Affiliates may reprint articles as long as full credit and a link to this web site: http://www.user-groups.net/info/ provided. Other Non-profit or non-commercial publications should contact us. The UGNN cannot guarantee accuracy or timeliness of articles beyond the date of publication. All URLs, links and email addresses are accurate as of date of publication. Clicking links in articles older than 30 days may result in a broken link. If you encounter a broken link, please let us know.
Return to: the top of this page, or the INDEX for this department
Exit to: The User Group Network front page
Contact: The Editor, Webmaster or Membership Director