Armwood Technology Blog: 06/06/2010

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Microsoft Secretly Sneaks Firefox Add-on Into Latest Update | CyberInsecure.com

Microsoft has silently slipped a Firefox extension onto user machines via an automatic software update. Again.

This week, as part of its regular Patch Tuesday, Redmond released an update for its various browser toolbars, and as Ars Technica noticed, this update also installed an entire add-on for Internet Explorer and an extension for Mozilla Firefox – without asking users. Ars was unable to identify the installs, but Microsoft now says that the update was installing the latest version of its Bing toolbar on machines that were running the older Windows Live Toolbar or MSN Toolbar.

The company says it has now, um, updated the update, and the silent toolbar install no longer occurs. The company calls the silent install “a bug.” More...

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Why would the folks from Redmond do something like this? Do they really think the public is that unaware? I am glad I ended my six year run with FireFox a few weeks ago when Chrome 5 for Mac came out of beta.

The Mozilla group is rightfully angry at Microsoft for secretly installing this add-on. The Redmond crew should be ashamed.

John H. Armwood

A First Look At The Extensions For The New Safari 5 Browser

Another site with extensions for Safari 5. One such extension is Adblock.

John H. Armwood

Judge limits DHS laptop border searches | Politics and Law - CNET News

A federal judge has ruled that border agents cannot seize a traveler's laptop, keep it locked up for months, and examine it for contraband files without a warrant half a year later.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in the Northern District of California rejected the Obama administration's argument that no warrant was necessary to look through the electronic files of an American citizen who was returning home from a trip to South Korea.

"The court concludes that June search required a warrant," White ruled on June 2, referring to a search of Andrew Hanson's computer that took place a year ago. Hanson arrived San Francisco International Airport in January 2009.

The Justice Department invoked a novel argument--which White dubbed "unpersuasive"--claiming that while Hanson was able to enter the country, his laptop remained in a kind of legal limbo where the Bill of Rights did not apply. (The Fourth Amendment generally requires a warrant for searches.)

"Until merchandise has cleared customs, it may not enter the United States," assistant U.S. attorney Owen Martikan argued. "The laptop never cleared customs and was maintained in government custody until it was searched..." More...

Google Seeks Consolidation of Wi-Fi Snooping Cases - PCWorld

Peppered with lawsuits over its collection of Web traffic data from wireless networks, Google wants all the cases consolidated into one, and for that single case to be heard by a court near its Mountain View, California, headquarters. In a motion this week with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, Google requests that the eight "Wi-Fi" lawsuits, as well as any future ones, be rolled into one at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. More...

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Why Google Backed Down on Home Page Backgrounds - PCWorld

Google pulled the plug on its home page background experiment Thursday, just hours after the day-long endeavor began. The G-Team had planned on featuring different images in the background of google.com for a full 24 hours, a move meant to show off the company's new customizable background option.

When it became clear people weren't pleased with the home page change, Google decided to press the "undo" button early. It turns out, though, the growing user backlash was only part of the problem. More...

Adobe officially releases Flash Player 10.1 | Browsers | MacUser | Macworld

Adobe’s Flash Player may be gettinglittle love from Steve Jobs and the iPhone, but the company is still perfectly happy to serve up a new update for Mac users.

On Thursday, Adobe announced the public arrival of Flash Player 10.1, now out of beta and ready to be downloaded onto the Mac of your choice. This most recent update officially patches the “critical vulnerability” found in earlier versions of the player that could cause system crashes and remote entry by attackers. More...

Safari 5 Extensions Are Appearing

I have found some extensions for Safari 5. Here is a list of the ones I have found. Please understand that these extensions have not been approved by Apple:

1) Scribefire - A blogging extension

2) Coda Notes - Website annotation

3) SafariextensionTumbir Blog - Facebook, YouTube and more...

4) Tuaw - Another Extension Site

5) 1Password - Password manager

6) Snapper - Saves the current page as a PNG file

7) Tweetie - Post to Twitter

John H. Armwood

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Google Says West Should Press China On Censorship : NPR

The world's largest search engine is asking U.S. and European governments to put more pressure on China to stop censoring the Internet.

Google's top attorney, David Drummond, described the practice as an unfair barrier to free trade and said Western governments should defend the flow of information the same way they do products. The West has complained to the World Trade Organization that China sells its goods below cost and undermines competitors. More...

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It is good to see an American company not caving in to governments like China which practice censorship. To many companies have turned a blind eye to this type of human rights abuse. Google has done the right thing and demonstrated corporate responsibility. Hopefully other companies will follow their lead.

John H. Armwood

AT&T breach compromises 114,000 iPad 3G users [U] | Electronista

(Updated with AT&T confirmation) An investigation today has found that a weakness in AT&T's security has exposed the identities of over 114,000 iPad 3G owners in the past few weeks. Hacker group Goatse Security claimed to Gawker to have manipulated an AT&T website-side script that would return the e-mail addresses associated with the ICC-IDs of the SIM cards in Apple's tablets. By using and guessing iPad ICC-IDs through a PHP script, as well as spoofing an iPad-like user agent, the group collected a large amount of personal information that included some well-known figures.

Among those compromised were top political officials such as House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Some in publishing, media networks and the US military will also have been exposed.

Benchmarks: Safari 5 shows JavaScript boost | Browsers & Add-Ons | From the Lab | Macworld

When Safari 5 was released Monday, Apple claimed that the “world’s fastest” Web browser is now faster. Macworld Lab ran a performance test on the new Safari, and our results confirm that Safari 5 provides a boost over its predecessor—at least when it comes to the browser’s JavaScript engine.

We used the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, which focuses on Safari’s Nitro JavaScript engine. Apple claims (on the Safari website) that Safari 5 is “up to 30 percent faster than Safari 4, 3 percent faster than Chrome 5.0, and over twice as fast as Firefox 3.6.” Apple also uses the SunSpider test. More...

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In my subjective tests, without measurements, Safari 5 seems a good bit faster than the previous version of the browser. It seems at least as fast as the recently released Chrome 5 browser for Mac. The real difference for me is that Chrome offers more customization. There are a lot of themes and extensions available for Chrome. Safari 5 does now support extensions however there are only a few available right now. The website that hosted a few extensions yesterday seems to be down now.

John H. Armwood

BBC News - Google accused of criminal intent over StreetView data

Google is "almost certain" to face prosecution for collecting data from unsecured wi-fi networks, according to Privacy International (PI). More...

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Microsoft Word Web App vs. Google Docs - PCWorld Business Center

By Ian Paul, PC World

Artwork: Chip Taylor

Microsoft put the last piece of its online office suite puzzle in place Monday, officially launching its Web-based suite of Microsoft Office applications called Office Web Apps. However, the biggest news isn't that you can use these Web apps -- many have been in beta for a while now -- rather, it's Microsoft's introduction of an online version of its popular software program Word, a word processing program.

This week's ribbon cutting of Microsoft's Office Web Apps is significant. Google has posed a serious challenge to Microsoft when it comes to offering compelling Web-based alternatives to desktop software programs, namely Microsoft's Office software franchise. Starting this week Microsoft has all its skin in the game with its Office Web Apps to go mano-to-mano with Google's online office suite, Google Docs. More...

First look: Safari 5's extensions | Browsers | MacUser | Macworld

Safari 5 delivers many new features to Apple's Web browser, but few are more prominent than the arrival of an extensions system. With an extension system in place, developers are in position to augment the functionality provided by the browser itself.

NYT demands Pulse app be pulled from App Store | Circuit Breaker - CNET News

An iPad app called Pulse, a visual RSS reader for news headlines, shot to the top of the app world only to hit the bottom in less than 24 hours.

On Monday, the iPad app created by a pair of Stanford grad students got special mention by Apple CEO Steve Jobs during his Worldwide Developers Conference keynote speech. By Tuesday, the app had disappeared from the App Store. Why? Apparently one of the news content providers in the app objected.

Microsoft releases Office updates, discusses 2011 version | Office | MacUser | Macworld

On Tuesday, Microsoft released a couple of Office 2004 and 2008 updates and confirmed a few new technical details about the upcoming 2011 suite upgrade.

On the company’s Mac Mojo blog, MacBU product unit manager Jake Hoelter said that that the forthcoming version of the productivity suite will not make the leap to 64-bit. Office 2011 for Mac will remain 32-bit only, though that doesn’t mean you should cancel your plans for camping outside an Apple Store to be the first to grab a copy. As is the case with most 64-bit applications right now, most users would not have necessarily seen a performance increase useing 64-bit, though Excel power users with millions of cells would likely have welcomed it. More...

With Safari 5, Apple plugs four dozen holes | InSecurity Complex - CNET News

Apple has released the latest version of its Safari browser that includes fixes for four dozen security holes, mostly in the open-source WebKit technology and many of which leave a computer open to compromise by drive-by-download attacks from visiting a malicious Web page.

Safari 5 for Windows and Mac debuted on Monday. The impact on security issues is detailed in this advisory, which applies to Safari 5.0 and Safari 4.1. More...

Skype open to using FaceTime on iPhone, other devices | Electronista

n insider at Skype today said the company would like to spread Apple's newly developed FaceTime video calls through other apps and platforms. The VoIP app developer wants to move the technology past the iPhone 4 to other platforms. The unnamed Pocket-lint source said Skype would "welcome the opportunity" to collaborate with Apple on getting FaceTime into the Skype iPhone app and would also likely spread to other hardware. Desktops and TVs were among the likely candidates.

Read more: http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/06/08/skype.hopes.to.spread.facetime.as.standard/#ixzz0qIVxB1gs

Apple - Safari - See the new features in Safari for Mac and PC.

Safari Reader removes annoying ads and other visual distractions from online articles. So you get the whole story and nothing but the story. It works like this: As you browse the web, Safari detects if you’re on a web page with an article. Click the Reader icon in the Smart Address Field, and the article appears instantly in one continuous, clutter-free view. You see every page of the article — whether two or twenty. Onscreen controls let you email, print, and zoom. Change the size of the text, and Safari remembers it the next time you view an article in Safari Reader. More...

Safari 5 to add Safari Reader, extensions, more | Browsers & Add-Ons | MacUser | Macworld

Update: Apple has now updated the Safari 5 page on its Website.

Steve Jobs’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote was not without its share of glitches, and bad luck continued to plague Apple on Monday as what appeared to be a prematurely released press release dished the features on the latest update to the company’s Web browser. According to the release, which has since been pulled, Safari 5 adds a new Safari Reader feature that presents Web pages in a streamlined interface, support for developer-created extensions, new HTML5 capabilities, and performance increases. More...

Monday, June 07, 2010

After prevaricating, Apple releases Safari 5 | The Download Blog - Download.com

Monday's debut of Apple's Safari 5 Web browser was one of the Worldwide Developers Conference rumors that preceded the event over the weekend, and it surprised many Steve Jobs prognosticators that he left the stage without announcing it. Then came an Apple press release on PRNewswire.com, but no browser. Then the press release disappeared, apparently a second stumble following a rare trip-up for Steve Jobs' tightly controlled message machine during the iPhone 4 announcement, and shortly after that the browser made its debut. More... _______________________________________________

I have only spent a short while with Safari 5. It seems faster. There is a already a new version of Agile Softwares 1Password which adds compatibility for Safari 5. There is an excellent "Reader" feature which is similar to Readability which I use all of the time. It converts a website into text, like a book. I love this feature. I love to read articles without distractions. I will post updates as my experience with the new version of Safari continues.

John H. Armwood

Brighthand.Com - Apple iPhone 4 Is Official

Apple iPhone 4 Is Official

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has officially announced the iPhone 4, the next-generation smartphone from this company. This will thinner than the current model, but offer a much better screen, faster processor, and other enhancements.

It lines up with the information and images that leaked out of Apple in recent months, stealing much of the thunder from Jobs' announcement. More...

Technology’s Toll - Impatience and Forgetfulness - NYTimes.com

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Are your Facebook friends more interesting than those you have in real life?Has high-speed Internet made you impatient with slow-speed children? Do you sometimes think about reaching for the fast-forward button, only to realize that life does not come with a remote control? If you answered yes to any of those questions, exposure to technology may be slowly reshaping your personality. Some experts believe excessive use of the Internet, cellphones and other technologies can cause us to become more impatient, impulsive, forgetful and even more narcissistic. More...

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Maybe the internet and my constant computer use is causing my memory to deteriorate. I thought it was my advancing age.

John H. Armwood

Sunday, June 06, 2010

2010 Ars Design Award winners for Mac OS X software

Without further ado, here are the 2010 Mac OS X Ars Design Award winners:

Best New Mac OS X App: Transmit 4 by Panic
Runner up: 1Password by Agile Web Solutions

Best Mac OS X User Experience: Tweetie for Mac by Atebits
Runner up: Transmit 4 by Panic

Most Innovative Mac OS X App: Dropbox by Dropbox
Runner up: Snippets by Lucky Ants

Best Mac OS X App for Education: Papers by Mekentosj
Runner up: Soulver by Aqualias

Best Student-created Mac OS X App: Schoolhouse 3 by Logan Collins
Runner up: jitouch2 by Supasorn Suwajanakorn & Sukolsak Sakshuwong

Reader's Choice Award: 1Password by Agile Web Solutions
Runner up: Dropbox by Dropbox

Quick tips to foil Mac break-in attempts | Security | MacUser | Macworld

As Mac users, many of us don’t spend as much time worrying about security as our counterparts on other platforms. While it’s true that Macs don’t encounter as much malware as Windows, though, it hardly means we’re immune from security risks, as I discovered myself this week. More...
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You have to think about what you are doing when you use a computer. A computer is actually only as secure as the way the user utilizes their machine. Mac's are more secure than Windows machines but no platform can protect you from visiting sites set up to trick you into giving them your private information. Strong passwords are really important. A password generating and saving program like Agile Software's 1Password can really make this task very easy. Some cyber criminals use software designed to guess passwords based upon dictionary words so be careful in your choice of passwords. Be smart, a word to the wise should be sufficient. This site posts current security threats. The internet is the modern day wild wild west, stay vigilant.

John H. Armwood