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Sunday the 14th of February 2010

Welcome to the Helpforce Daily Briefing, on Sunday the 14th of February 2010

1. Virus Warnings
2. Daily Technology News
3. Latest Shareware and Freeware
4. FAQ for the day
5. Advice of the day
6. Internet Advice

This is a free service provided by Helpforce.com, to unsubscribe please visit http://www.helpforce.com
For free technical support, visit us at http://www.helpforce.com

1. Latest Virus Alerts From Sophos
---------------------------------------
Troj/Banker-EWJ on 14 February 2010 03:49:33 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojbankerewj.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Swizzor-QO on 14 February 2010 03:49:33 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojswizzorqo.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FakeAV-AVJ on 13 February 2010 23:19:20 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakeavavj.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/Nyrate-B on 13 February 2010 21:36:44 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malnyrateb.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FakeAV-AVI on 13 February 2010 21:36:44 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakeavavi.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Bredo-AY on 13 February 2010 16:45:48 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojbredoay.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/Behav-362 on 13 February 2010 13:57:38 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malbehav362.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-MML on 13 February 2010 13:57:38 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentmml.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FakeAV-AVH on 13 February 2010 13:57:38 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakeavavh.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/PDFJs-GK on 13 February 2010 13:57:38 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojpdfjsgk.html?_log_from=rss

2. Latest Technology News From Slashdot
-----------------------------------------------

-- The Ultimate Interstellar Valentine Mix Tape
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/E9cdM_vNxMg/The-Ultimate-Interstellar-Valentine-Mix-Tape)
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that toward the end of the summer of 1977, NASA launched two Voyager spacecraft that each included a golden record containing, among other things, the sound of a kiss, a mother's first words to her newborn child, music from all over the world, and greetings in 59 different languages. The records on board were meant to survive for a billion years, in the hope that some day, against enormous odds, they might cross paths with an alien civilization. The record was a special project of Carl Sagan with the help of Ann Druyan, creative director of the project. For Druyan, though, the summer of 1977 and the Voyager project carry a deeply personal meaning because it was during the Voyager project that she and Sagan fell in love. Then Druyan had an idea for the record: They could measure the electrical impulses of a human brain and nervous system, turn it into sound, and put it on the record so that maybe, 1,000 million years from now, some alien civilization might be able to turn that data back into thoughts." (More, below.)Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Australian Judge Rules Facts Cannot Be Copyrighted
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/jBPHui3OG5A/Australian-Judge-Rules-Facts-Cannot-Be-Copyrighted)
nfarrell writes "Last week, an Australian Judge ruled that copyright laws do not apply to collections of facts, regardless of the amount of effort that was spent collecting them. In this case, the case surrounded the reproduction of entries from the White and Yellow Pages, but the ruling referred to a previous case involving IceTV, which republishes TV guides. Does this mean that other databases of facts, such as financial data, are also legally able to be copied and redistributed?" Here are analyses from a former legal adviser to the directory publisher which prevailed as the defendant in this case, and from Smart Company.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Low-Cost Robotic Arm Sketches Faces
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Cz330Pn0NJA/Low-Cost-Robotic-Arm-Sketches-Faces)
ptresset writes "A low-cost robotic arm has been sketching faces at the Kinetica2010 art fair in London. Created by the Aikon project research team, the system drew faces non-stop, its creator having to take the role of an automata to repeatedly change the paper. The Aikon project is based at Goldsmiths College, University of London. The main objective of the Aikon project is to implement a computational system capable of simulating the various important processes involved in face sketching by artists. The ensemble of processes to be simulated include the visual perception the subject and the sketch, the drawing gestures, the cognitive activity, reasoning, the influence of the years of training, etc. It is evident that due to knowledge and technological limitations the implementation of each process will remain coarse and approximate. The system implemented is expected to draw in its own style."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- New Interactive Black Hole Simulation Published
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/iBsPKJaGQdo/New-Interactive-Black-Hole-Simulation-Published)
quaith writes "The New Scientist reports on a simulation just published in the American Journal of Physics that shows how the sky would appear in the vicinity of a black hole — if an observer could actually get near one. Using real positions of around 118,000 stars, the simulation shows how the bending of light, the frequency shift, and the magnification caused by gravitational lensing and aberration in the vicinity of the black hole affect the sky's appearance. The simulation is interactive and allows the user to explore the stellar sky around the black hole. The simulation offers a couple of modes: "quasi static" or "freely falling" and the sample videos are quite spectacular. The New Scientist has a writeup, with an embedded video . The original article citation is here (abstract only). The simulation, which runs on Linux or Windows, as well as sample videos can be downloaded from the University of Stuttgart website."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Gov't Proposes "National Climate Service" For the US
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/3qm49yBhuIE/Govt-Proposes-National-Climate-Service-For-the-US)
Standing Bear writes "NPR reports that 140 years after the creation of the National Weather Service, the US government is proposing the creation of a similar service that will provide long-term projections of how climate will change. 'We are actually getting millions of requests a year already about: How should coastal cities plan for sea-level rise? How should various other agencies in the federal government or in state governments make plans for everything from roads to managing water supplies?' says NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco. 'And a lot of that is going to be changing as the climate changes.' Under the plan, the new NOAA Climate Service would incorporate some of the agency's existing laboratories and research programs, including the National Climatic Data Center, the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and the National Weather Service's Historical Climate Network. Meanwhile, as plans for the new climate service shape up, NOAA launched a new Web site, climate.gov, designed to provide access to a wide range of climate information."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Pittsburgh, Seattle Announce Interest In Google's Fiber Trial
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/i0yCF5PchNg/Pittsburgh-Seattle-Announce-Interest-In-Googles-Fiber-Trial)
An anonymous reader contributes a link to a press release from the mayor of Pittsburgh that says the city has announced, along with Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and the University of Pittsburgh, that it intends to respond to Google's 1Gbps FTTH (Fiber to the Home) request for information. Seattle's mayor, too, wants in on the action, and more cities will surely pile on.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Father of the Frisbee Dies At 90
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/uanDF_Ox_VE/Father-of-the-Frisbee-Dies-At-90)
theodp writes "Walter Fredrick Morrison, whose post-World War II invention of a 'flying' plastic disc became the American recreational icon known as the Frisbee, has died at age 90 of age-related causes (great obit pic). Wham-O Inc. has sold more than 200 million Frisbees since Morrison sold the company the rights to what he called the Pluto Platter in 1957. The roots of today's aerodynamic Frisbees go back to 1937, when Morrison and his future wife tossed a large popcorn can lid back and forth for fun during a Thanksgiving party."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- HP's New Data Center Cooled By Glacial Wind
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/0-iLfrsbuGo/HPs-New-Data-Center-Cooled-By-Glacial-Wind)
Arvisp writes with this snippet about HP's recently completed datacenter in northeast England, which utilizes the glacial wind blowing off the North Sea to lower temperatures of IT equipment and plant rooms: "The Wynyard takes in the cool air, filters it accordingly and collects it in the management system and is then forced over the front of the server racks before it is exhausted. The result is a hall with a constant temperature of 24C. When the winds become even colder than usual, the exhausted heat is mixed with the outside air to maintain temperatures."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Obama's Space Plan — a Conservative Argument
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/_m5ZOlHQqxc/Obamas-Space-Plan-mdash-a-Conservative-Argument)
MarkWhittington writes "The Obama space proposal, which seeks to enable a commercial space industry for transportation to and from low Earth orbit while it cancels space exploration beyond LEO, has sparked a kind of civil war among conservatives. Some conservatives hate the proposal because of the retreat from the high frontier and even go so far as to cast doubt on the commercial space aspects. Other conservatives like the commercial space part of the Obama policy and tend to gloss over the cancellation of space exploration or even denigrate the Constellation program as 'unworkable' or 'unsustainable.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- UPS Setup For a Small/Mid-Size Company?
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/v15uDAvvyT8/UPS-Setup-For-a-SmallMid-Size-Company)
An anonymous reader writes "We're a small company employing ~30 people and we are becoming increasingly reliant on virtual servers. Unfortunately, the hosts they are on don't have redundant power supplies because we simply don't have the capacity. We currently have one UPS per rack, which gives us about two minutes. This may have been enough time when they were put in — they've been there for some time — but it isn't really enough time to shut everything down in the event of a failure. Domain Controllers alone may take up to 15 minutes. So I'm looking at upgrading the UPSs to ones that would preferably give us around 15 minutes of breathing space and send an email or text alert when a failure is detected. Something that could trigger shutdowns automatically would also be nice. Of course cost is a key factor too. so given all of the above, what does Slashdot recommend?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- A Printer That Uses No Consumables
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/fduyvovdOw4/A-Printer-That-Uses-No-Consumables)
jimboh2k sends word of a printer introduced by Japanese company Sanwa Newtec, called the PrePeat RP-3100 (a play on "repeat"). It prints on A4-sized sheets of PET plastic, and these sheets can be reused up to 1,000 times, the company says. The printer uses heat transfer technology rather than ink, and so has no consumables. There's a video of the printer in operation at the link. The PrePeat costs about $5,600 and a supply of 1,000 plastic sheets will set you back another $3,300. However, the company gives a use case in which a corporation saves $7,360 per year on consumables, as well as putting less CO2 into the atmosphere. So far the PrePeat is available only in Japan.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Motorola To Split In Two
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/C_jL9OGH5dM/Motorola-To-Split-In-Two)
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Motorola plans to reorganize itself into two independent publicly held companies by the first quarter of 2011. The first company will own the Motorola brand and will include Motorola's mobile handset unit and home set-top box business. This new company will focus on the 'three screens' lifestyle envisioned by carriers like AT&T and Verizon, where customers would watch content on TV, on their computers, and on their mobile phones. The other company emerging from the split will include Motorola's wireless networking business and its enterprise radio systems operations. The wireless networking business would likely be sold off, leaving the second company with its profitable enterprise radio systems business, which generated $7 billion of the company's $22 billion in sales in 2009."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- State of Alabama Fighting NASA's New Plan
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/TKXQZWrpISg/State-of-Alabama-Fighting-NASAs-New-Plan)
FleaPlus writes "Alabama politicians have formed a 'task force' dedicated to fighting NASA's new plans to cancel the costly Constellation/Ares program, which is largely based in Alabama. The chronically mismanaged Constellation project attempted to build new rockets in-house and replicate an Apollo-style lunar program with minimal investment in new technologies. NASA's new boosted budget revives formerly suppressed R&D efforts into critical technologies needed for a sustainable push towards Mars and intermediate waypoint destinations, works with (instead of trying to compete with) existing commercial rockets to transport cargo/crew to orbit, and funds a stream of robotic precursor missions to scout other worlds and demonstrate new technologies. The Alabama task force fighting the new plan includes former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and former Ares project manager Steve Cook."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- The Wi-Fi On the Bus
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/QWZXNdbuhTM/The-Wi-Fi-On-the-Bus)
theodp writes "For students who endure hundreds of hours on a school bus each year in a desert exurb of Tucson, the Wi-Fi on the bus improves the ride. Last fall, school officials mounted a $200 mobile Internet router from Autonet Mobile to bus No. 92's sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. What began as a hi-tech experiment has had an unexpected result — Wi-Fi has transformed the formerly boisterous bus rides into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared. 'Boys aren't hitting each other, girls are busy, and there's not so much jumping around,' said J. J. Johnson, the Internet Bus driver."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Yale Switching To Gmail, Not Without Opposition
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/_f9zw080O0Q/Yale-Switching-To-Gmail-Not-Without-Opposition)
PwnSnake writes "While it makes sense for small (and large) corporations to move to Gmail, something seems amiss when a top private university decides to hand everything over to Google. Although most in that community seem to welcome the change, several organizations on campus have joined forces to call for a transparent process and get students and faculty thinking about the downsides of the switch. The problem is choice (users can already forward mail to Gmail; it doesn't make sense to force that option and not have a backup or opt-out mail server)."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

3. Latest Shareware from Planet-Shareware
-----------------------------------------------

4. FAQ of the day from Helpforce
-----------------------------------------------

-- I have fitted my CD Burner, what now?
(http://www.helpforce.com)

Question: I have my cd burner hook up but i dont know what to do

Answer: ok, well, it should have come with some drivers, you will need to install these to get it working. If you have not got any drivers, then go to the company's website (if you do not know this, then search in yahoo for it, or try our links page at http://www.helpforce.com/main/elinks.html. If you wish to copy CDs, then you will probably need another piece of software (available via the internet, try www.downloads.com)Please note though, burning data (either programs or audio) to CDs that doesnt belong to you and which you have not got permission for may be illegal

5. Advice of the Day from ask-leo
-----------------------------------------------

6. Internet Advice
-----------------------------------------------

-- The Best Internet Radio(http://netforbeginners.about.com/b/a/257931.htm)

If you have highspeed Internet, and can afford the bandwidth, then you definitely want to try streaming Internet radio. Unlike the boring local stations you might be used used to,...

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