UGN Info Manager UGN Info Manager
Samsung is planning on producing 100 GB flash drives. Those could replace a hard drive in a notebook computer and thus provide faster access to data AND longer battery life. The believe that technology will progress to make them cheaper than hard drive in the next few years. (Of course, that would also make them available for cell phones and cameras.) Read the full story at: www.pcworld.com
After several complaints about child predators taking advantage of kids in their chat rooms, Yahoo shut down all user created chat rooms while make a revision to their software. Chat rooms will return, but should have names like: "Young Girls For Older Guys." Read the full story at: informationweek.com
According to the FBI, there is a "100 percent chance" of a child or teen meeting predator in a chat room. Now they may be in for a little surprise. You've heard of the "Shaq Attack" in basketball -- now the phrase takes on new meaning as Shaquille O'Neal joins "Operation Blue Ridge Thunder" -- Virginia's elite undercover cyberspace crime Task Force. Earlier this year the NBA All-Star was named spokesperson for The Safe Surfin' Foundation and was made an Honorary Deputy U.S. Marshal by the U.S. Department of Justice. But this summer, "Officer Shaq" will be prowling internet chat rooms looking for online criminals on behalf of Virginia's Blue Ridge Thunder. So watch out! www.blueridgethunder.com
Now, more women buy iPods than men. Surprised? In her column at the "Babe Taxi" site, Carly Simone provides some insight into the iPod cultural phenomenon from a woman's perspective. Forget Diamonds! An iPod Is Really A Girl's Best Friend www.babetaxi.com
While cruising one of my favorite Mac sites "Tera Patricks' Mac 360" this article caught my attention -- and with the current frenzy over widgets, it makes good reading. Widgets are really just a new millennium version of the famous Mac Desk Accessories -- but Tera sez: "They're cute. They're cuddly. They're collectable. Some are actually worthwhile. Many widgets are worthless. See: www.mac360.com
... Trying to control Internet again, this time - e-mail -- Hotmail is known for its ruthlessness about spam. (I think that knowledge is still being spread.) Now the company is pushing through its Sender ID technology, which means the spoofed headers used by spammers and virus writers will now bounce, and Hotmail will inform you when this has happened.
Legitimate marketing services are among the most vocal in their dissent at the product and of course, there's no confirmation of what happens when Hotmail, along with Yahoo, occasionally "forgets" an address which you specifically marked as not being spam.
The problem is that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a proposed standard refused to ratify the standard and of course this will not stop Microsoft introducing it anyway through the millions of hotmail accounts which exist. This will force other ISPs to follow Microsoft's lead if they want their clients to be able to send e-mail to Hotmail accounts.
Read the full story at: www.pocket-lint.co.uk
MacOSHints.com offers the following: "If you have young kids, Tiger's Parental Controls (in the Accounts preferences panel) offers choices like Simple Finder and pictures in list of users. The kids just click on their photo and then on the leftmost folder to get to their games and such." There are a couple of paragraphs more about using Tiger to protect the kids. Read the full "hint" at: www.macosxhints.com
What dashboard is complete without a Dancing Hula Girl to sit atop your dashboard and provide literally decades of hilarity?. This freeware Widget Jiggles to your iTunes, or just about anything... [Picture; Direct download: hulagirl3.zip] Author's page: www.johnwilliams713.com
a color translator and analysis software designed for the Mac and Windows BabelColor
AKVIS Retoucher image processing plug-in restores damaged photographs to optimal condition with minimal effort and amazing results ... AKVIS Retoucher
The latest e-book, a collection of five extraordinary stories by Franz Kafka and his precursors ... Sophie eBook Reader
FocalBlade Photoshop-compatible plugin for sharpening your photos and great looking blur, soft focus and glow effects ... At the Plug-in Site
ADHOC Adds Intel sessions and training classes www.user-groups.net/news/
maintaining top search engine ranking through careful use of keywords and monitoring a siteís position in comparison to its competitors ... seo
PC-Mac-Net FileShare v4.6 offers enhanced Internet file sharing ... PC-Mac-Net
Enhanced Version Sports New Anti-Spyware, New User Interface, New Forms Cleaner, More Cleaning Options, and support for Apple Mail provides greater personal protection and privacy for Tiger ... Alume Internet Cleanup
This $149 headset will allow you to go as far as 30 feet from you iPod and never miss a note or a line of a audio file. Sounds really cool, but I doubt that I will have the cash to get one any time soon. Someone want to send me a review product? Read the press release at: www.logitech.com
I haven't been to this web site in months. But with all that was happening with the announced move to Intel, I wanted to see what they had to offer. In the past, I had found them at times to be a little strange. But this past week, the talked about:
* the update to Tiger to 10.4.2
* Apple trademarking "Numbers" for the purpose of a spreadsheet application to be added to iWorks.
* Free WebOjects
* The next Airport technology
* New Mac advertisements in the pipeline.
Some of those are not new, but it was interesting to seem them all in one place. See for yourself at: www.macosrumors.com
Microsoft last week announced support for RSS in the Longhorn operating system - the next version of the Microsoft Windows. (I believe that is due in late 2006.)
According to this blog entry, "The RSS functionality in "Longhorn" is being designed to make it simple for end users to discover, view and subscribe to RSS feeds, as well as make it easier for developers to incorporate the rich capabilities of RSS into their applications." Don't believe that is difficult now, the only plus I see is that things would be done more consistently. I would still like to see FeeDemon for Mac, but don't really see how this addition will add much. Some of the comments to the announcement are funny though. See it at: physorg.com
CodeWeavers Inc., a leading Windows-to-Linux software ISV, announced last Wednesday that it will bring Windows application support to future Macintoshes running on Intel x86 chips.
"Apple's decision to shift to Intel chips is good news for many Windows developers who, for reasons of time and/or expense, have never created Mac versions of their key applications," said Jeremy White, CEO of CodeWeavers, in a statement. Apple's eventual move to Intel x86 chips promises to significantly reduce the time and cost of developing Mac versions of Windows software.
"By using CrossOver as part of Gupta's Team Developer suite, Gupta's global community of some 14,000 developers has been able to port popular business applications to reach new markets quickly, at a fraction of the costs required to do a traditional port," said Charles Stevenson, chief technical officer of Gupta Technologies LLC.
Even though the Mac OS is built on BSD Unix, CodeWeavers hadn't made a major effort to bring its technology to Macs before because its technology base, Wine, requires Intel CPUs for optimal operation, and up until now Apple only used IBM PowerPC chip sets. Read the full story at: www.eweek.com
"The Mote in God's Eye" (Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle) is one of my favorite science fiction books. The actual photo from the Hubble telescope comes awfully close to pictures that graced the cover of the book. [While you're there, check out Japan's "Ultra-Lifelike Robot" Picture] See the "Mote in God's Eye?" at: nationalgeographic.com
"Any act often repeated soon forms a habit; and habit allowed, steadily gains in strength. At first it may be but as the spider's web, easily broken through, but if not resisted it soon binds us with chains of steel."
- Tyron Edwards
"Goals in writting are dreams with deadlines."
- Brian Tracy
"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want."
- Ben Stein
Have a great week... (See last week)
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