Helpforce | Providing Free 24/7 Computing Technical Support on the Internet

Helpforce provides free technical support 24 hours a day, to the Internet. We support all problems, errors, crashes and aim to answer all questions.

View today's Daily Briefing

Helpforce » Back Issues of Daily Briefings

Send this page to a friend or colleague!

Technical Support

eHelp Support

eTalk Community

eLinks Database

Helpforce FAQ

Downloads

Bootdisks

Other Resources

UNIX Guides

About Helpforce

	Corporate Site
	Headlines
	Contact Us
	eHelp login

	Previous Daily Briefings
	Remote eHelp
	v:Book

Join Helpforce!

Recognize these logos?

Helpforce needs you!

Click Here to sign up and become a Helpforce member

Friday the 18th of June 2010

Welcome to the Helpforce Daily Briefing, on Friday the 18th of June 2010

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

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
---------------------------------------
Hare on 18 June 2010 09:21:20 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/hare.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/DwnLdr-IGU on 18 June 2010 09:21:20 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojdwnldrigu.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/PDFJs-KT on 18 June 2010 09:21:20 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojpdfjskt.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/Agent-Z on 18 June 2010 08:36:34 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malagentz.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/VB-CO on 18 June 2010 08:36:34 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malvbco.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/VB-CT on 18 June 2010 08:36:34 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malvbct.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/VB-CU on 18 June 2010 08:36:34 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malvbcu.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/VB-CW on 18 June 2010 08:36:34 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malvbcw.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/VB-CX on 18 June 2010 08:36:34 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malvbcx.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Banker-EZB on 18 June 2010 08:36:34 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojbankerezb.html?_log_from=rss

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

-- Firefox Extension HTTPS Everywhere Does What It Sounds Like
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/8ZxTGooJH7M/Firefox-Extension-HTTPS-Everywhere-Does-What-It-Sounds-Like)
climenole writes "HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox extension produced as a collaboration between The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It encrypts your communications with a number of major websites. Many sites on the web offer some limited support for encryption over HTTPS, but make it difficult to use. For instance, they may default to unencrypted HTTP, or fill encrypted pages with links that go back to the unencrypted site. The HTTPS Everywhere extension fixes these problems by rewriting all requests to these sites to HTTPS."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Microsoft To Add Yet Another Smartphone OS This Year
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/dR7j_MdBs4g/Microsoft-To-Add-Yet-Another-Smartphone-OS-This-Year)
GMGruman writes "Someone at Microsoft either really loves mobile operating systems or can't make up his mind as to which to use, because Microsoft Thursday announced yet another mobile OS, its fifth. The new Windows Embedded Handheld OS will succeed Windows Mobile 6.5 and run on at least some existing Windows Mobile smartphones. It is not the same mobile OS, known as Windows Phone 7, that Microsoft earlier this year said would replace Windows Mobile and break with it in terms of compatibility so Microsoft could better compete with the iPhone and Google Android OS."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Thailand Shuts Down 43,000 More Websites
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/XU3HoyKYiXU/Thailand-Shuts-Down-43000-More-Websites)
An anonymous reader writes "Bangkok Post reports that the Thai government has now shut down over 43,000 websites deemed defamatory to the royal institution. Thai ISPs are warned to cooperate 'voluntarily' or lose their license. This is in addition to 17,000+ that were recently blocked for 'national security,' including both Facebook and Twitter accounts."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- IBM's Question-Answering System "Watson" Revisited
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/J0E_9qGBx_s/IBMs-Question-Answering-System-Watson-Revisited)
religious freak writes "IBM has created and made the question answering algorithm, Watson, available online. Watson has competed in and won a majority of (mock) matches against humans in Jeopardy. Watson does not connect to the Internet to answer his questions, but rather seeks answers using many different algorithms then employs a ranking algorithm to choose the best answer." We mentioned Watson last year as well.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/XpuohKgbM8A/Falsehoods-Programmers-Believe-About-Names)
Jamie points out this interesting article about how hard it is for programmers to get names right. Since software ultimately is used by and for humans, and we humans are pretty tightly linked to our names (whatever the language, spelling, or orthography), this is a big deal. This piece notes some of the ways that names get mishandled, and suggests rules of thumb (in the form of anti-suggestions) to encourage programmers to handle names more gracefully.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Flock Switches To Chromium For New Beta
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/DeaQr6y-teM/Flock-Switches-To-Chromium-For-New-Beta)
An anonymous reader writes "Flock, the social networking browser, has moved from Firefox open source code to Chromium in its latest beta. The new Flock is essentially a combination of Chrome and TweetDeck, as you can sign in to Twitter and Facebook accounts and look at a single feed that incorporates updates from both. Currently, the beta is only available on Windows, but a Mac version is slated for later this year."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Harry Reid Pushes Nevada As "Saudi Arabia of Geothermal Energy"
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/cU5XVqzTD6U/Harry-Reid-Pushes-Nevada-As-Saudi-Arabia-of-Geothermal-Energy)
An anonymous reader writes "Of all the 'mainstream' forms of renewable energy, it seems that geothermal power is always left in the shadows compared to solar and wind power. However, that looks set to change with news that the US Department of Energy will fund geothermal projects in northwestern Nevada and southeast Oregon. With funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the DOE has stated a 'conditional commitment' to provide a partial guarantee for a rumored $98.5 million loan to the Nevada Geothermal Power Company (NGP). According to US Senator Harry Reid, 'Northern Nevada is the Saudi Arabia of geothermal energy.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Ranking Soccer Players By Following the Bouncing Ball
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/2cltMGHvw4g/Ranking-Soccer-Players-By-Following-the-Bouncing-Ball)
sciencehabit excerpts from an interesting report on statistics for soccer, in the stats-obsessed world of sports: "Only a handful of soccer ranking systems exist, most of which rely on limited information: the number of goals scored in a match, the number of goals assisted, and some indices of a match's difficulty and importance. ... So researchers turned to an unlikely source: social networks. Applying the kinds of mathematical techniques used to map Facebook friends and other networks, the team created software that can trace the ball's flow from player to player. As the program follows the ball, it assigns points for precise passing and for passes that ultimately lead to a shot at the goal. Whether the shot succeeds doesn't matter. Only the ball's flow toward the goal and each player's role in getting it there factors into the program's point system, which then calculates a skill index for each team and player."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Google Urged To Let Personal Data Fade Away
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/uR5RiBnXDhA/Google-Urged-To-Let-Personal-Data-Fade-Away)
jee4all writes with this excerpt from E-week: "Researchers say personal information should 'degrade' — becoming less specific over time — to protect users' privacy. Rather than amassing personal data and holding on to it as long as legally possible, companies such as Google should allow the data to degrade over time, according to researchers. In an interview with the BBC this week, Dutch researcher Harold van Heerde discussed his work on the idea of allowing data to becomes less specific over time. Letting the specifics gradually disappear could protect consumer privacy while also meeting the needs of service providers, he said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Deformable Liquid Mirrors For Adaptive Optics
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/vg3aSwed6JM/Deformable-Liquid-Mirrors-For-Adaptive-Optics)
eldavojohn writes "Want to make a great concave mirror for your telescope? Put a drop of mercury in a bowl and spin the bowl. The mercury will spread out to a concave reflective surface smoother than anything we can make with plain old glass right now. The key problem in this situation is that the bowl will always have to point straight up. MIT's Technology Review is analyzing a team's success in combating problems with bringing liquid mirrors into the practical applications of astronomy. To fight the gravity requirement, the team used a ferromagnetic liquid coated with a metal-like film and very strong magnetic fields to distort the surface of that liquid as they needed. But this introduces new non-linear problems of control when trying to sync up several of these mirrors similar to how traditional glass telescopes use multiple hexagonal mirrors mounted on actuators. The team has fought past so many of these problems plaguing liquid mirrors that they produced a proof of concept liquid mirror just five centimeters across with 91 actuators cycling at one kilohertz and the ability to linearize the response of the liquid. And with that, liquid mirrors take a giant leap closer to practicality."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- FCC Vote Marks Effort To Take Greater Control of the Web
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Roc6BmG-8vo/FCC-Vote-Marks-Effort-To-Take-Greater-Control-of-the-Web)
GovTechGuy writes "The FCC voted today to open an inquiry into how the broadband industry is regulated, the first step in a controversial attempt to assert greater regulatory control over Internet service providers. In a 3-2 vote the Democratic members of the Commission voted to move forward with the FCC's proposal to reclassify broadband as a telecom service, increasing the regulation it is subject to. The move also has large implications for net neutrality, which FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski has made a focus under his watch."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Bluecherry Releases GPL'd MPEG-4 Driver
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Amy4kUV3ZWM/Bluecherry-Releases-GPLd-MPEG-4-Driver)
azop writes "Today Bluecherry released a GPL'd driver for its multiple-input MPEG-4 hardware compression cards. The driver supports audio and video capture from 4-, 8-, and 16-channel single-card encoders using the Video4Linux and ALSA APIs. More information about the driver and its features can be found on Bluecherry's development blog and on Ben Collins' personal blog. Bluecherry is the first Linux software company to release a complete driver based on Linux kernel APIs (Video4Linux and ALSA) for multiple-input hardware-compressed MPEG-4 capture cards under the GPL. The cards are designed for security applications (digital video recording), but other applications could potentially make use of the compressed streams and Video4Linux API integration. An H.264 version is 'in the works.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- How Sperm Whales Offset Their Carbon Footprint
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/tCyIg0nSQH0/How-Sperm-Whales-Offset-Their-Carbon-Footprint)
Boy Wunda writes "Scientists at Flinders University in South Australia found that in an awesome example of design by Mother Nature, Southern Ocean sperm whales offset their carbon footprint by simply defecating – an action that releases tons of iron a year and stimulates the growth of phytoplankton which absorb and trap carbon dioxide. If only we humans could say the same for our poop, which really doesn't do much more than just sit there." I'm going to do my part by buying some iron supplements and a can of chili, and heading off toward the ocean.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- WordPress 3.0 Released
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/FNFxmWrWvVc/WordPress-30-Released)
An anonymous reader writes "WordPress 3.0, the thirteenth major release of WordPress and the culmination of half a year of work by 218 contributors, is now available for download and comes with 1,217 bug fixes and feature enhancements. Major new features in this release include a new default theme called Twenty Ten. Theme developers have new APIs that allow them easily to implement custom backgrounds, headers, shortlinks, menus (no more file editing), post types, and taxonomies."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Developers' New Opportunity — Retailers' Open APIs
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/0ynWvaLCLBI/Developers-New-Opportunity-mdash-Retailers-Open-APIs)
snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister examines the recent trend among retailers to provide outside developers access to open APIs — one that promises opportunity for developers to transform retailer data transparency into lucrative business models. But whether the trend lives up to its potential remains to be seen, especially given the hurdles small and midsize businesses face launching programs similar to those in place at Amazon, Zappos, and Sears. McAllister writes, 'There's a definite "Field of Dreams" quality to any such undertaking. Ask any company that hosts an open source software project how many outsiders actually commit code changes on a regular basis and you're likely to hear a discouraging figure. Similarly, just because a retailer builds an API doesn't mean anyone will actually use it. Given the uncertain prospects of return, it can be difficult to justify such an investment.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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

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

-- Do I need a system disk to start Windows XP?
(http://www.helpforce.com)

Question: I am building a new computer. I plan on installing XP on it. I am a novice builder. I was wondering with XP if I need a system disk to start with. I thought I read where with XP it does not need DOS. I hope this is not a dumb question. Thanks in advance.

Answer: In the bios you need to make sure that its primary boot device is set to cd-rom, you can then put the cd in the drive and setup will load from the cd.

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

Thank you for your continued support, please do not reply to this email address as emails will not be answered.

Content copyright by its' respective owners

Search Helpforce

From eTalk

There are a total of 1673 posts on eTalk (501 topics and 1172 replies)

There are 0 guests and 2 members making a total of 2 users on eTalk.

Click Here to enter the eTalk Community.

Advertise Here!

Your Link Here?
Give your website the exposure it deserves!

Click Here For Details

Technology News

Stay up to date with technology, with a free, short daily briefing on current happenings

Alternatively visit here for more information

To view our back issues, click here

Members - eHelp Login

Click here for technical details about Helpforce's site

Kindly Hosted by:

Please visit www.asis.com for more details on Internet Access, Web Hosting and Computer Repair.Skydive North East