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Wednesday the 29th of October 2008

Welcome to the Helpforce Daily Briefing, on Wednesday the 29th of October 2008

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
---------------------------------------
Troj/Agent-IBY on 29 October 2008 10:44:37 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentiby.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-IBZ on 29 October 2008 10:44:37 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentibz.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FakeAle-JD on 29 October 2008 10:44:37 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakealejd.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FakeAle-JE on 29 October 2008 10:44:37 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakealeje.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Swizzor-OK on 29 October 2008 10:44:37 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojswizzorok.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/RarMal-C on 29 October 2008 05:01:46 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malrarmalc.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-IBX on 29 October 2008 05:01:46 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentibx.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Fakevir-GU on 29 October 2008 05:01:46 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakevirgu.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Invo-Zip on 29 October 2008 05:01:46 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojinvozip.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/PWS-AVE on 29 October 2008 05:01:46 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojpwsave.html?_log_from=rss

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

-- MTV Launches Music Video Site
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/08yA7mh2VGc/article.pl)
An anonymous reader writes "MTV Music has just launched a website where they offer over 16,000 music videos — like YouTube, but with fewer notices and DMCA takedowns. They've also set up development tools for third parties to incorporate the content into their own creations. Users creating accounts at the site face other challenges, however, such as the six separate agreements and privacy statements that must be accepted via a single checkbox. Thankfully, at the time of writing the MTV Music website was making this process easier on its Firefox 3 visitors by automatically checking the accept box whenever any agreement is viewed."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Mars Lander Faces Slow Death
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/vR3-Tzs8x3s/article.pl)
Riding with Robots writes "It's the beginning of the end for the Phoenix Mars Lander. As winter approaches in the Martian arctic, NASA says it's in a 'race against time and the elements' in its efforts to prolong the robotic spacecraft's life. Starting today, mission managers will begin to gradually shut the lander's systems down, hoping to conserve dwindling solar power and thereby extend the remaining systems' useful life. 'Originally scheduled to last 90 days, Phoenix has completed a fifth month of exploration in the Martian arctic. As expected, with the Martian northern hemisphere shifting from summer to fall, the lander is generating less power due to shorter days and fewer hours of sunlight reaching its solar panels. At the same time, the spacecraft requires more power to run several survival heaters that allow it to operate even as temperatures decline.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Finnish E-Voting System Loses 2% of Votes
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/OWrXJQBpQX0/article.pl)
kaip writes "Finland piloted a fully electronic voting system in municipal elections last weekend. Due to a usability glitch, 232 votes, or about 2% of all electronic votes were lost. The results of the election may have been affected, because the seats in municipal assemblies are often decided by margins of a few votes. Unfortunately, nobody knows for sure, because the Ministry of Justice didn't see any need to implement a voter-verified paper record. The ministry was, of course, duly warned about a fully electronic voting system, but the critique was debunked as 'science fiction.' There is now discussion about re-arranging the affected elections. Thanks go to the voting system providers, Scytl and TietoEnator, for the experience."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- NSA and Army On Quest For Quantum Physics Jackpot
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/jjf6emAgNKI/article.pl)
coondoggie sends this excerpt from NetworkWorld: "The US Army Research Office and the National Security Agency (NSA) are together looking for some answers to their quantum physics questions. ... The Army said quantum algorithms that are developed should focus on constructive solutions [PDF] for specific tasks, and on general methodologies for expressing and analyzing algorithms tailored to specific problems — though they didn't say what those specific tasks were ... 'Investigators should presuppose the existence of a fully functional quantum computer and consider what algorithmic tasks are particularly well suited to such a machine. A necessary component of this research will be to compare the efficiency of the quantum algorithm to the best existing classical algorithm for the same problem.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- The First E-President
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/WWwpFMEm7AQ/article.pl)
Szentigrade writes "Popular Science is running a letter by Daniel Engber of the online Slate Magazine in which he offers the US Presidential nominees advice on using the full potential of the Internet upon their election into office. Some examples discussed in the letter include: a project already being developed that speeds up the patent approval process, a UK site that aims to improve government-citizen interactions, and perhaps most importantly, a call for government information to be 'presented in a standardized and widely used data format, like XML, so that anyone — in or out of government — could use and reconfigure it however they pleased.' Will 2009 be the first year of the E-President?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Multiple Asteroid Belts Found Orbiting Nearby Star
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/jYwqCqRh9d8/article.pl)
Kligat writes "Scientists have found two asteroid belts around the star Epsilon Eridani, the ninth closest star to our solar system. Epsilon Eridani also possesses an icy outer ring similar in composition to our Kuiper Belt, but with 100 times more material, and a Jovian mass planet near the edge of the innermost belt. Researchers believe that two other planets must orbit the 850 million year old star near the other two belts. Terrestrial planets are possible, but not yet indicated."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Researcher Warns of "Digital Dark Age"
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/rMhJmtwAb1U/article.pl)
alphadogg writes "A assistant professor from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is sounding a warning that companies, the government and researchers need to come up with a plan for preserving our increasingly digitized data in light of shifting document management and other software platforms (think WordPerfect and floppy disks). Jerome P. McDonough, who teaches at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says there exists about 369 exabytes worth of data, and that includes some pretty hard to replace stuff, including tax files, email and photos. Open standards could play a key role in any preservation effort, he says. 'If we can't keep today's information alive for future generations, we will lose a lot of our culture,' McDonough said. Even over the course of 10 years, you can have a rapid enough evolution in the ways people store digital information and the programs they use to access it that file formats can fall out of date.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Attack Code Found For Recent Windows Bug
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/D3P0rlQNJOc/article.pl)
CWmike writes "Just a day after downplaying the vulnerability that caused it to issue an out-of-cycle patch last week, Microsoft warned customers late yesterday that exploit code had gone public and was being used in additional attacks. 'We've identified the public availability of exploit code that now shows code execution for the vulnerability addressed by MS08-067,' said Mike Reavey, operations manager of Microsoft's Security Response Center, in a post to the MSRC blog. 'This exploit code has been shown to result in remote code execution on Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- The Personal Genome Project Hits the Web
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/V2v3wTpnstQ/article.pl)
Ian Lamont writes "The Personal Genome Project has released the data sets and descriptions of traits, ethnic background and other information of the first ten volunteers, which include the project director and nine other people with backgrounds in genetics, medicine, and biotechnology. While the human genome was first sequenced at the beginning of this decade, what's special about this project is these 10 participants are having their names, genome, and other personal data gleaned from questionnaires shared openly on the Web, where interested researchers can freely access them. One of the ultimate aims of the project is to create a public database of 100,000 volunteers that researchers and other parties can use to determine what traits, diseases or other characteristics are associated with specific genetic markers. When asked why volunteers are requested to attach their names to the Web records, the project director said the data could be used by researchers in other fields outside of genetics, including forensic science and historical research. While this project opens the door for some interesting and potentially life-saving research, there may also be difficulties or problems for people whose records are posted on the Web. Would you participate? Would you share your name, along with your genome, disease history, and traits? Why or why not?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Judge Tells RIAA To Stop 'Bankrupting' Litigants
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/4T4Fmxt5zFs/article.pl)
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Boston judge who has consolidated all of the RIAA's Massachusetts cases into a single case over which she has been presiding for the past 5 years delivered something of a rebuke to the RIAA's lawyers, we have learned. At a conference this past June, the transcript of which (PDF) has just been released, Judge Nancy Gertner said to them that they 'have an ethical obligation to fully understand that they are fighting people without lawyers... to understand that the formalities of this are basically bankrupting people, and it's terribly critical that you stop it ...' She also acknowledged that 'there is a huge imbalance in these cases. The record companies are represented by large law firms with substantial resources,' while it is futile for self-represented defendants to resist. The judge did not seem to acknowledge any responsibility on her part, however, for having created the 'imbalance,' and also stated that the law is 'overwhelmingly on the side of the record companies,' even though she seems to recognize that for the past 5 years she has been hearing only one side of the legal story."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- The Internet Is 'Built Wrong'
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/KAsY2kE-7Xk/article.pl)
An anonymous reader writes "API Lead at Twitter, Alex Payne, writes today that the Internet was 'built wrong,' and continues to be accepted as an inferior system, due to a software engineering philosophy called Worse Is Better. 'We now know, for example, that IPv4 won't scale to the projected size of the future Internet. We know too that near-universal deployment of technologies with inadequate security and trust models, like SMTP, can mean millions if not billions lost to electronic crime, defensive measures, and reduced productivity,' says Payne, who calls for a 'content-centric approach to networking.' Payne doesn't mention, however, that his own system, Twitter, was built wrong and is consistently down."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- NASA Orbiter Reveals Details of a Moister Mars
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/yKiTmYFwCGk/article.pl)
Matt_dk writes "NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has observed a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars. This discovery suggests that liquid water remained on the planet's surface a billion years later than scientists believed, and it played an important role in shaping the planet's surface and possibly hosting life."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Microsoft Unveils Browser-Based Office Apps
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/vg6_PRi8qyQ/article.pl)
snydeq writes "Microsoft followed up its Windows Azure unveiling by announcing that it will deliver lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote through the browser, a la Google Apps. Surprisingly, Office Web applications will run in Firefox and Safari, not just Internet Explorer. Far less shocking: You won't get Office Web apps free and clear as you do Google apps. The apps are meant to be an extension to locally installed instances of the next version of Microsoft Office, the same way Outlook Web Access provides access to mail without the fat Outlook client."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Researchers Decentralize BitTorrent
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/HreXpchZq6s/article.pl)
A Cow writes "The Tribler BitTorrent client, a project run by researchers from several European universities and Harvard, is the first to incorporate decentralized search capabilities. With Tribler, users can now find .torrent files that are hosted among other peers, instead of on a centralized site such as The Pirate Bay or Mininova. The Tribler developers have found a way to make their client work without having to rely on BitTorrent sites. Although others have tried to come up with similar solutions, such as the Cubit plugin for Vuze, Tribler is the first to understand that with decentralized BitTorrent search, there also has to be a way to moderate these decentralized torrents in order to avoid a flood of spam."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Hands-On With Windows 7's New Features
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/WmnRZ7c6_tI/article.pl)
Barence writes "Microsoft has released the first pre-beta code of Windows 7, and PC Pro has a series of in-depth, hands-on examinations of all the new features. The revamped user interface has clearly gleaned more than a little inspiration from the Mac OS X Dock, but it goes further than the Apple concept with 'jumplists,' new gadgets and an updated system tray. The much-vaunted multi-touch controls were there to play with, and it seemed to work well. Networking has been given the full treatment, with new features HomeGroup and Libraries. Windows 7 debuts a new feature called Device Stage that has the potential to be unbelievably handy ... or a complete disaster. Finally, several new features could make PCs easier to manage and secure for IT departments, such as BitLocker To Go and Branch Cache." All in all, these features together lead some people to the conclusion that Windows 7 will "suck less than Vista" — that last link from reader ThinSkin, who also points to a related sampling of screenshots from the current iteration of Windows 7.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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

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

-- I am having problems with large and middle sized windows
(http://www.helpforce.com)

Question: gt; Problem: When I open email (READ & WRITE & ADDRESS BOOK) and 95% of my websites come in small. Don't let me confuse you, I know that there are 3 sizewindows but I'm having a problem with the middle size and the large sizewindows. I'm running AOL 8.0 and AOL 7.0. I just installed the 8.0 to see ifit did the same thing the 7.0 did. They both are the same. I have 256RAM and30GIG hard drive with about 14GIGs free.> OK let see if I can explain this right. When I open a web page it comes inthe middle size. That's not to bad but on the right side and the bottom arescroll bars. The page that opens slides under the right scroll bar and hidesthe X Square & the expand square. I have to move the page to the left to getat these squares. If I resize the page and click remember window size andposition or remember window size only it will remember but only once. If Iexpand the window as big as it will go the scroll bars go bye bye. I'llclick the remember size and position or remember size only but if I closethe page and then go back its small again. I AOL, GATEWAY & MICROSOFTcouldn't help. What they were trying to tell me was its the nature of thebeast and we don't know how to fix it.> If someone out there tries to help keep in mind I tried a lot of things sofar so don't be surprised if I keep saying "BEEN THERE DONE THAT,"> Thanks for any help you might have.> Most of the web pages come in small. I can expand them myself window by window but that's a drag. I know there are 3 size windows its the middle size and the large size. How cane I get all my web pages as well as my email pages (READ, WRITE & ADDRESS BOOK) to open large all the time and let me be the one to resize them if I want to.

Answer: Dear Ed,I hate to agree with AOL, Gateway and Microsoft but it appears that the information they gave you is correct, it is the nature of Windows to work this way.When a window is in maximised mode (e.g. it's largest size) you can not manually change the size of the window, that is the fixed large size. Scroll bars will appear if needed for the page (email, letter, etc) to allow you to see the rest of the document.In medium size (normal mode) a window is free to be moved and re-sized. Scroll bars will appear if you make the window too small and the entire document can no longer be seen.If the entire document can be seen, scroll bars will dissapear until needed again.These are the only two ways you can have a window.If you are saying you want to have every window automaticly maximise (largest) when you open it, all you have to do is click 'maximise' on one of the windows and it should remember this setting for every window that follows.If you are having troubles with the size of your screen and the amount of viewing space you have, I would suggest changing your screen reseloution which will allow you to fix more text on one screen.You can do this by right clicking on the desktop, selecting Properties, going to the settings tab and then adjusting the screen resleloution slider to a setting appropriate for you. Reply Posted on 5/1/2003 yeah i think you need to up your resolution, goto display propeties in control panel, choose settings, then move the slider right 1 notch only.Chris

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

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