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Saturday the 24th of July 2010

Welcome to the Helpforce Daily Briefing, on Saturday the 24th 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

This is a free service provided by Helpforce.com, to unsubscribe please visit http://www.helpforce.com
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1. Latest Virus Alerts From Sophos
---------------------------------------
Troj/Agent-NYO on 24 July 2010 04:28:27 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentnyo.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FakeAV-BNK on 24 July 2010 04:28:27 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakeavbnk.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FakeAvJs-F on 24 July 2010 04:28:27 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakeavjsf.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Inject-NT on 24 July 2010 04:28:27 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojinjectnt.html?_log_from=rss
W32/Palevo-U on 24 July 2010 04:28:27 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/w32palevou.html?_log_from=rss
W32/Patched-I on 24 July 2010 04:28:27 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/w32patchedi.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-OAZ on 24 July 2010 00:38:26 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentoaz.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-OBA on 24 July 2010 00:38:26 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentoba.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-OBB on 24 July 2010 00:38:26 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentobb.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Banker-FAC on 24 July 2010 00:38:26 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojbankerfac.html?_log_from=rss

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

-- Dell Drops Ubuntu PCs From Its Website
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/8z7qCO1r7aE/Dell-Drops-Ubuntu-PCs-From-Its-Website)
Barence writes "Dell has stopped selling consumer PCs preloaded with Ubuntu from its website, and doesn't know when they're coming back. A search for Ubuntu on the Dell UK website returns only one laptop — the Dell Latitude 2100 from the company's business range. Dell insists that it's continuing to sell Ubuntu systems, but only over the phone, and has no idea when — or even if — the Ubuntu PCs will return online. 'We've recently made an effort to simplify our offerings online, by focusing on our most popular bundles and configuration options, based on customer feedback for reduced complexity and a simple, easy purchase experience,' Dell told PC Pro. 'We're also making some changes to our Ubuntu pages, and as a result, they are currently available through our phone-based sales only.' The move comes after Dell put a page on its website advising customers only to go for Ubuntu if they were interested in open-source programming."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Australian Enterprises Block Sex Party's Political Site
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/9KZVm2BYFFo/Australian-Enterprises-Block-Sex-Partys-Political-Site)
schliz writes "Corporate web filters in some organizations are blocking web access to the Australian Sex Party, which is a registered political party that is contesting Australia's upcoming August 21 Federal Election. The site features policies and campaign material, including opposition to the Government's mandatory internet filtering proposal. Party convener Fiona Patten said that although the term 'sex' in the party's website URL could be responsible for its filtering woes, the party is unlikely to consider a name change: 'I think the fact that people are still blocking our site just because of the word "sex" in the name shows that we need this political movement.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Earth As an Extrasolar Planet
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/d2flUzFXZhg/Earth-As-an-Extrasolar-Planet)
sciencehabit writes "Astronomers have a theory that they can detect whether a planet light years away will be habitable by just looking at how its sun is reflected in its atmosphere. To test the idea, they pretended that they were observing Earth from a distant object — in this case, the moon. And sure enough, they picked up critical components for life in Earth's atmosphere: ozone, oxygen, sodium, and nitrogen."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Study Finds 0.3% of BitTorrent Files Definitely Legal
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/hUkMVp4obyA/Study-Finds-03-of-BitTorrent-Files-Definitely-Legal)
Andorin writes "It's common knowledge that the majority of files distributed over BitTorrent violate copyright, though the exact percentage is unclear. The Internet Commerce Security Laboratory of the University of Ballarat in Australia has conducted a study and found that 89% of files examined were in fact infringing, while most of the remaining 11% were ambiguous but likely to be infringing. Ars Technica summarizes the study: 'The total sample consisted of 1,000 torrent files—a random selection from the most active seeded files on the trackers they used. Each file was manually checked to see whether it was being legally distributed. Only three cases—0.3 percent of the files—were determined to be definitely not infringing, while 890 files were confirmed to be illegal. ' The study brings with it some other interesting statistics; out of the 1,000 files, 91 were pornographic, and approximately 4% of torrents were responsible for 80% of seeders. Music, movies and TV shows constituted the three largest categories of shared materials, and among those, zero legal files were found."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Utah State Prof Says Hybrids Don't Kill More Pedestrians
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/7Irc_tzQH9g/Utah-State-Prof-Says-Hybrids-Dont-Kill-More-Pedestrians)
thecarchik writes "Preliminary data seemed to show that hybrids were more likely to be involved in pedestrian crashes or hit cyclists. But now EV enthusiast Mark Larson (he's also an Emeritus Professor of Spanish at Utah State University) has analyzed some additional data and found this not to be the case at all. He used 1994-2008 figures from the Fatality Reporting System maintained by the NHTSA and found that the rate of pedestrian fatalities has in fact fallen over that same period."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- What To Do With an Old G5 Tower?
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/m1uek3FjtnY/What-To-Do-With-an-Old-G5-Tower)
lunatic1969 writes "I've got an old G5 PowerPC tower that's sitting in a spare room not seeing much in the way of use. I'd like to stick a Linux distribution on it and maybe breathe some life back into it. I've got a few vague ideas — it might be a handy file server, streaming video for a security system, or simply just to have a spare box around. My question is therefore in two parts: First, are there any particularly creative projects or ideas anyone has for an old G5, and second and most important, which distribution currently offers the best support for this box?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Breaking Open the Video Frontier, Despite MPEG-LA
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/SvTZy2gYBHU/Breaking-Open-the-Video-Frontier-Despite-MPEG-LA)
JimLynch writes "Did you know that nearly every video produced for Web viewing has been, at one point or another, in MPEG format no matter in what format the video is ultimately saved? According to Chris 'Monty' Montgomery, nearly every consumer device outputs video in MPEG format. Which means that every software video decoder has to have MPEG-licensed technology in order to process/edit video."

An interesting snippet: "But there's hope on the horizon. Besides the codecs and formats from the Xiph.Org Foundation, the new WebM format announced by Google in May will ideally provide consumers and developers with another alternative. Montgomery has thrown Xiph.Org support behind WebM, because Google's financial muscle (not to mention their free license) will have a real chance to break the hold MPEG-LA has on the market."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- BioWare's Star Wars MMO To Have Space Combat
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/_sJaRf6XuuU/BioWares-emStar-Warsem-MMO-To-Have-Space-Combat)
An anonymous reader writes "Big news for Star Wars fans looking forward to BioWare's upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG — space combat has been confirmed for the game. Players will be able to fly around the galaxy in their own personal starships, avoiding asteroid belts, landing in dangerous territory and battling other vessels. The initial news makes it sound like a cross between Mass Effect's galaxy map and a traditional space fighting game, where players will have to find 'hotspots' on the galaxy map in order to enter a particular zone."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Google Schedules Chrome 6, 7, and 8 For This Year
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/gzLbMAz5sPk/Google-Schedules-Chrome-6-7-and-8-For-This-Year)
An anonymous reader writes "Google said that it will be releasing a new stable version of Chrome every six weeks, which is about twice as fast as the release pace today. The goal is to make new features available when they are done and to make Chrome releases more predictable. Has anyone complained that there were too few new Chrome releases? Mozilla has been releasing a major new browser update twice a year and Microsoft is on an 18-24 month pace. Firefox's 4.0 Beta 2 is scheduled for release soon, and it appears that Mozilla is somewhat paranoid about the Black Hat Conference. 3.6.6 was planned to be the original 'Black Hat release'; now we are at version 3.6.7 and Mozilla has already a build candidate of 3.6.8 that will be released depending on news coming out of Black Hat."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- PC Gamers Too Good For Consoles Gamers?
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/msyM1mmH3k4/PC-Gamers-Too-Good-For-Consoles-Gamers)
thsoundman sends in a blog post from Rahul Sood, CTO of HP's gaming business, who claims there was once a project in development at Microsoft to let Xbox users compete against PC users playing the same game. According to Sood, the project was killed because the console players kept getting destroyed by their PC counterparts. He wrote, "Those of us who have been in the gaming business for over a decade know the real deal. You simply don't get the same level of detail or control as you do with a PC over a console. It's a real shame that Microsoft killed this — because had they kept it alive it might have actually increased the desire of game developers and gamers alike to continue developing and playing rich experiences on the PC, which would trickle down to the console as it has in the past."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Pentagon Workers Tied To Child Porn
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Y7bVLLSo6p8/Pentagon-Workers-Tied-To-Child-Porn)
finalcutmonstar tips a Boston Globe report on details released today of Operation Flicker (PDF), an investigation of subscribers to child porn websites, which seems to have implicated a number of government employees in sensitive positions. Quoting:
"Federal investigators have identified several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances who allegedly purchased and downloaded child pornography, including an undisclosed number who used their government computers to obtain the illegal material, according to investigative reports. The investigations have included employees of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — which deal with some of the most sensitive work in intelligence and defense — among other organizations within the Defense Department. The number of offenders is a small percentage of the thousands of people working for sensitive Pentagon-related agencies. But the fact that offenders include people with access to government secrets puts national security agencies 'at risk of blackmail, bribery, and threats, especially since these individuals typically have access to military installations,' according to one report by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service from late 2009."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Droid X Gets Rooted
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/vbRuYEVTgYU/Droid-X-Gets-Rooted)
An anonymous reader writes "The Droid X forums have posted a procedure to root the new Motorola Droid X, putting to rest Andoid fans' fears that they would never gain access to the device's secrets due to a reported eFuse that would brick the phone if certain boot files were tampered with. Rooting the phone is the first step in gaining complete control over the device."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Open Source Participation Gains Support In China
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/6KduNcBRi_g/Open-Source-Participation-Gains-Support-In-China)
eldavojohn writes "ZDNet blogger Fred Muller notes that a Chinese company called Taobao has become one of the first in the country to participate in open source. After years of Chinese companies using Linux, Taobao has announced they are open sourcing TAIR, and they revealed what is believed by Muller to be the first open source repository hosted by a Chinese corporation. Muller tracked down the originator of this information and was also informed that the Linux kernel can expect contributions soon from Taobao. Several people involved with bringing open source to China have expressed concerns over a cultural divide (PDF) in regards to opening your corporation's source code to potential competition. Some people speculated that the culture created by an open source movement was irreversibly foreign to Chinese culture. Taobao is exhibiting cracks in that assumption — exciting times for open source advocates as code contributions to open source become even more multicultural."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Saturn's Moon Prometheus Spawning Moonlets
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/7ymOnQwMxKc/Saturns-Moon-Prometheus-Spawning-Moonlets)
astroengine writes "For the first time ever, astronomers have witnessed the formation of celestial objects... in Saturn's rings. As the Saturnian moon Prometheus dashes through the gas giant's rings, it leaves large formations of ice behind, some as large as 12 kilometers in diameter. When the small moon makes another pass, it is not known whether these giant 'snowballs' remain or get destroyed, but according to Linda Spilker, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory: 'You can think of Saturn's rings as miniature versions of the disks where planets form. The same physical processes are occurring.'"
The Planetary Society blog has further explanation, as well as pictures and a movie of Prometheus' interaction with Saturn's rings. The Cassini team has released some fantastic images of the fans and clumps in the F ring, as well as a simulation showing how the ring's particles are affected by the moon's passing.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Google Engineer Decries Complexity of Java, C++
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/RA9LDDLjiIo/Google-Engineer-Decries-Complexity-of-Java-C)
snydeq writes "Google distinguished engineer Rob Pike ripped the use of Java and C++ during his keynote at OSCON, saying that these 'industrial programming languages' are way too complex and not adequately suited for today's computing environments. 'I think these languages are too hard to use, too subtle, too intricate. They're far too verbose and their subtlety, intricacy and verbosity seem to be increasing over time. They're oversold, and used far too broadly,' Pike said. 'How do we have stuff like this [get to be] the standard way of computing that is taught in schools and is used in industry? [This sort of programming] is very bureaucratic. Every step must be justified to the compiler.' Pike also spoke out against the performance of interpreted languages and dynamic typing."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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

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

-- How do I remove programs from the startup?
(http://www.helpforce.com)

Question: When I go into Run/msconfg/settings , I have a large number of programs listed which I may have used in the past and no longer use or want to have listed there. Is it possible to remove the names of these programs from Msconfg/Startup? and if possible . How does one do this?

Answer: In msconfig, the only place it is safe to remove programs from is the list of Starting Programs. From this list, simply un-check the programs you no longer wish to start.Once un-checked, they are effectively "ignored" by your computer. There is no need to actually remove them, they have no effect on your PC's operation.I would advise against unchecking options from any of the other tabs in msconfig, e.g. autoexec.bat, config.sys, etc as un-checking these may cause problems with your PC unless you are exactly familiar with what these programs do.Removing programs from the startup page is safe, but by far the best way to remove programs from your PC is by using the Add/Remove control panel on your windows control panel.This safely removes a program and all it's peices from your PC.Hope this helps.For more information on how to use msconfig please visit: http://netsquirrel.com/msconfig/If you require any further assistance, please feel free to reply to this message. Please include all previous emails so that we may more easily track your problem.

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

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

-- What Is Foursquare?(http://netforbeginners.about.com/b/2010/07/24/what-is-foursquare.htm)

This web service has really caught on in the last several weeks. It's a combination of micro-blogging (like Twitter), and GPS geocaching (finding places). By using your smartphone, you...

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