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Monday the 19th of July 2010

Welcome to the Helpforce Daily Briefing, on Monday the 19th of July 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

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1. Latest Virus Alerts From Sophos
---------------------------------------
Mal/Agent-BO on 19 July 2010 05:28:47 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malagentbo.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/PWS-BB on 19 July 2010 05:28:47 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malpwsbb.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/VB-EV on 19 July 2010 05:28:47 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malvbev.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/DwnLdr-IHQ on 19 July 2010 05:28:47 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojdwnldrihq.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FakeAV-BMN on 19 July 2010 05:28:47 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakeavbmn.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FraudPac-C on 19 July 2010 05:28:47 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfraudpacc.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Mdrop-CSM on 19 July 2010 05:28:47 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojmdropcsm.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/PWS-BKC on 19 July 2010 05:28:47 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojpwsbkc.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Zegost-C on 19 July 2010 05:28:47 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojzegostc.html?_log_from=rss
W32/Stuxnet-B on 19 July 2010 05:28:47 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/w32stuxnetb.html?_log_from=rss

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

-- Top Secret America
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/JSYtB_BM1iw/Top-Secret-America)
mahiskali writes "The Washington Post published an immense interactive website today, detailing the companies and Government agencies currently doing Top Secret work in the United States. Everything from counter-IED operations to human intelligence is touched upon. Citing various interviews with "super users" and through exhaustive analysis of public records for over two years, this interactive site allows users to peer into the guarded world of top secret intelligence. With more than 854,000 people currently holding a TS clearance, has the Defense and Intelligence world grown too big, too fast? Or has this large growth served us well, exemplified by no successful terrorist acts on US soil since 9/11? How can we judge the success of these programs, when much of it will never be known by the general public?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Internet Access While Sailing? (Revisited)
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/jqzM2tBkV5M/Internet-Access-While-Sailing-Revisited)
El Genio Malvado writes "10 years ago the question was asked, What is the best way to get Internet while at sea? After reading the responses — and after a decade of technological advancement — is there a better, more reliable method? For someone with the ability to telecommute 100% of the time, then the idea of sailing around the world with a paycheck direct deposited must be getting more and more tempting. What does the community at large have for modern resources for constant streaming internet at sea?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Rackspace Releases Cloud Stack As Open Source
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/DbBpCXvTT1k/Rackspace-Releases-Cloud-Stack-As-Open-Source)
zerocool^ writes "Techcrunch is reporting that Rackspace is open-sourcing their cloud computing technologies, under the name OpenStack. Rackspace has chosen to release under the Apache 2.0 license. The initial release encompasses the cloud object storage and cloud virtual server management suites. Along with this release, NASA is contributing technology from its Nebula Cloud Platform. Early partners include Intel, Dell, and Citrix."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- New Photos Show "Devastating" Ice Loss On Everest
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/w52F39D30gU/New-Photos-Show-Devastating-Ice-Loss-On-Everest)
Simmeh writes "The BBC reports on new photos of the Himalayas taken from exactly the same position as ones from 1929 and compares the ice coverage. The Asia Society, which did the groundwork, are quoted as saying 'If the present rate of melting continues, many of these glaciers will be severely diminished by the middle of this century.' I guess the previous claim wasn't too unrealistic."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Vaccine Patch Removes Needle Pain
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/_RKaicPMcwg/Vaccine-Patch-Removes-Needle-Pain)
wog777 writes "Researchers led by Mark Prausnitz of Georgia Institute of Technology reported their research on microneedles in Sunday's edition of Nature Medicine. A microneedle contains needles so small you don't even feel them. Attached to a patch like a Band-Aid, the little needles barely penetrate the skin before they dissolve and release their vaccine."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- WSJ's Mossberg Calls For a Tougher Broadband Plan
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/EuoJKXnpfAQ/WSJs-Mossberg-Calls-For-a-Tougher-Broadband-Plan)
GovTechGuy writes "Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg thinks the FCC's national broadband plan is long overdue, but he criticized it for being vague on the details and too focused on expanding access into rural areas. Mossberg pointed out that what passes for broadband in the US wouldn't even qualify as such in many other developed countries. He also noted that Americans pay more per unit of broadband speed than our competitors. He called on the government to devote time and resources to making sure Americans have the broadband access they need to stay competitive in the 21st century global economy."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Remix This Game — a Free Software Experiment
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Pm7XY2qH_eI/Remix-This-Game-mdash-a-Free-Software-Experiment)
An anonymous reader writes "REMIX THIS GAME is an experimental game design contest where participants can re-mix and re-cycle my free-software self-published PC game, XONG. XONG is available under permissive licenses allowing remixes and derivative works of the code, graphics, sound effects, and music—even for commercial use. The source code license is the GNU GPL Version 3, and the media is covered by the Creative Commons BY-SA license. No special software or programming experience are needed—XONG has been packaged up so that you can just download the game and edit the graphics/code/music/sounds in place, and re-start the game to see your changes. Plus, it is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux, so you can remix it on whichever OS you use, using whatever programs you like."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- IEEE Looks At Kevin Costner's Oil Cleanup Machines
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/W7wCZRRZNKw/IEEE-Looks-At-Kevin-Costners-Oil-Cleanup-Machines)
richardkelleher writes "IEEE Spectrum takes a look at the machines developed by a company funded by Kevin Costner that are supposed to extract the oil from the Gulf waters. Is it possible that in the years since the Exxon Valdez, that Kevin Costner is the only one who has invested money into the technology of oil spill cleanup?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Microsoft Has No Plans To Patch New Flaw
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/dUZYXoYa0tI/Microsoft-Has-No-Plans-To-Patch-New-Flaw)
Trailrunner7 writes "Microsoft has acknowledged the vulnerability that the new malware Stuxnet uses to launch itself with .lnk files, but said it has no plans to patch the flaw right now. The company said the flaw affects most current versions of Windows, including Vista, Server 2008 and Windows 7 32- and 64-bit. Meanwhile, the digital certificate that belonging to Realtek Semiconductor that was used to sign a pair of drivers for the new Stuxnet rootkit has been revoked by VeriSign. The certificate was revoked Friday, several days after news broke about the existence of the new malware and the troubling existence of the signed drivers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Airlines Get Billions From Unbundled Services
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/bGNfcfHzjlY/Airlines-Get-Billions-From-Unbundled-Services)
Hugh Pickens writes "In hearings before Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said that airlines reported revenue of $7.9 billion from baggage fees and reservation change and cancellation fees in calendar years 2008 and 2009 — fees on unbundled services that once were considered part of the ticket price. 'We believe that the proliferation of these fees and the manner in which they are presented to the traveling public can be confusing and in some cases misleading,' says Robert Rivkin, the Department of Transportation's general counsel. Published fares used by consumers to choose flights don't 'clearly represent the cost of travel when these services are added.' However, Spirit Airlines President and CEO Ben Baldanza defended the practice of unbundling, saying it allows his airline to charge lower fares (PDF) and allows the customers the choice to purchase the services or not."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Cool, Science-y Masters Programs For Software Devs?
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/54c14qni4gM/Cool-Science-y-Masters-Programs-For-Software-Devs)
An anonymous reader writes "I'm an early-30s software engineer with 10 years of development experience, and a BA in computer science from a top university. I've been working for several years at a national lab in bioinformatics, but I'm starting to wonder what other interesting directions there are to go for people in my boat: computer science majors with software development experience. The goal would be to find a position that could leverage my development skills, but also include a strong research component, without the need for a Ph.D. (I would be happy to get a masters for the right job.) I'm actually getting some of those things in my current job, but I'm ready to move on to new or different areas of research. Possible fields that seem interesting so far: neuroscience, economics/sociology, and AI. I'm happy to work in a team in support of Ph.D.s, but would like an active part in the research end of things as well as the tool-making end."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- StarCraft II Cost $100 Million To Develop
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/PTNGR4XTfmE/emStarCraft-IIem-Cost-100-Million-To-Develop)
UgLyPuNk writes with news of a report that Blizzard has spent over $100 million developing StarCraft II. Initial development on the game began in 2003, and it's due to be released on July 27th. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick "described StarCraft as one of the company’s seven 'pillars of opportunity' (where each pillar has the potential to deliver operating profit between $500 million and $1 billion over its life span)." The finalized system requirements for the game have been released, and players planning to buy the digitally distributed version can download it now, though it won't be playable until the 27th.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- UK Delays National Broadband For Three Years
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/YAxClpfmZRE/UK-Delays-National-Broadband-For-Three-Years)
DMandPenfold writes "The British government has said that it will not be able to complete the rollout of broadband across the UK until 2015, blaming a lack of funds. 'Under the previous Labour government's original plans, everyone in the UK would have had access to 2 megabits per second broadband by 2012.' On Thursday, UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt organized a meeting for major broadband providers 'to identify the current barriers to providing basic level broadband in rural areas as well as suggesting ways to make more use of publicly-owned networks, such as those connecting schools and hospitals.' BT, the country's biggest telco, estimates that the necessary government funding for the project will be as much as £2 billion."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Inside Apple's Anechoic Testing Chambers
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/C53N27JUzVk/Inside-Apples-Anechoic-Testing-Chambers)
As part of Apple's press conference on Friday, they mentioned their state-of-the-art testing facilities and released a brief video showing some of their anechoic chambers. They later invited journalists on a tour of the rooms and explained some of the experimentation process. Quoting:
"There are four stages. The first is a passive test to study the form factor of the device they want to create. The second stage is what Caballero calls the 'junk in the trunk' stage. Apple puts the wireless components inside of the form factor and puts them in these chambers. The third part involves studying the device in one of these chambers but with human or dummy subjects. And the fourth part is a field test, done in vans that drive around various cities monitoring the device's signal the entire time (both with real people and with dummies). ... The most interesting of these rooms was one that Caballero called 'Stargate.' Why? Because, well, it looks like it belongs in the movie/TV series Stargate. Inside this room, there's a giant ring that a human sits on a raised chair in the center of. This chair slowly rotates around as signals are passed around the entire outer circle. This creates a 360 degree test area. I was told this room is completely safe for humans. And people typically spend 40 minutes in there at a time for testing. By comparison, devices can stay in the other anechoic chambers for up to 24 hours at a time. ... We then went into a room that contained fake heads."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- TI vs. Calculator Hobbyists, Again
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/m3abwWsoPtI/TI-vs-Calculator-Hobbyists-Again)
Deep Thought writes "Texas Instruments, already infamous thanks to the signing key controversy last year, is trying a new trick to lock down its graphing calculators, this time directed toward its newest TI-Nspire line. The TI-Nspires were already the most controlled of TI's various calculator models, and no third-party development of any kind (except for its very limited form of TI-BASIC) was allowed until the release of the independent tool Ndless. Since its release, TI has been determined to prevent the large calculator programming community from using it. Its latest released operating system for the Nspire family (version 2.1) now prevents the calculators from downgrading to OS 1.1, needed to run Ndless. This is TI's second major attack on Ndless, as the company has already demanded that websites posting the required OS 1.1 remove it from public download [PDF, in French], obviously to prevent use of the tool. Once again, TI is preventing calculator hobbyists from running their own software on calculators they bought and paid for."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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

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

-- Help, when I turned my PC on last night, it would not boot
(http://www.helpforce.com)

Question: When I turned my PC on last night, it would not boot. It's an HP Pavilion xt936, 128 meg ram, plenty hd space available on a 40 gig drive. Only modifications have been adding a sound blaster live several months ago and adding a diamond viper about the same time. Forgot that I did change to an optical mouse, too. Machine has functioned well until last night. I got no POST, just a blank monitor.Removed mouse, put original equipment mouse back on. Unplugged all peripherals, such as scanner and USB stuff. I reseated hd cable, changed out the monitor to a working sony, tried again with no success. Checked all cards, found all to be properly seated. Removed sound blaster. Tried again. Still have a blank screen, with no boot. Seems to be getting power to the keyboard, since the keyboard light is working. Any ideas which way to go now? Thanks so very much!

Answer: I had a similar problem a few months ago. I firstly made sure that all cables where in place properly (ie none had come out) especially the power cable to the motherboard. Secondly, look in the manual for your motherboard jumper settings and try resetting the BIOS memory - it could be that this has been changed some way and this is causing a problem.Thirdly, try contacting the motherboard manufacturer or the BIOS manufacturer (try http://www.helpforce.com/main/elinks.html for links to them.) It seems to me that either the motherboard, BIOS or possibly RAM (but ram is least likely to me) is malfunctioning. Have you recently moved the computer, is it near a raditor or in a damp enviroment? Reply Posted on 31/8/2002 A common cause to this kind of thing is an earth loop on the motherboard, this would cause the motherboard (+keyboard) to get power but not start the boot sequence, i would try taking the computer apart, take the motherboard out of the case, and part by part puting it back in making sure that u have plastic washers between the motherboard and the case where the screws attach the two together!!! if it was me i would set the computer up outside the metal case perhaps on a table and try it like that! from experience i would be surprised if this doesnt work!!!

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

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

-- The Best iPhone Games(http://netforbeginners.about.com/b/2010/07/19/the-best-iphone-games.htm)

Gaming is such a personal thing. But as more and more readers submit their recommendations, a few games distinguish themselves as crowd pleasers. Here are 14 splendid game choices for...

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