Lookpicking adds keystroke shortcuts to Firefox searches
November 11, 2008
The in-browser search box is now ubiquitous. It can be found in every major browser, and some–like Firefox and IE, allow you to both change which engine you want to search with (from a drop down list), and add more engines from a large directory.
It’s fast and easy, but a new Firefox extension called Lookpicking goes one step
further, essentially giving you little packs of search engines that you can call up like bookmarks and share with others. More importantly, it lets you swap back and forth between your entire collection by typing in just the first letter or two of the engine you want. If you’ve ever used Launchy, QuickSilver or any other desktop application launcher, the idea is similar.
This has many potential uses, with the single most one being a shared home computer. If you’re on a machine with several people sharing one user account you can have multiple sets of search engine packs loaded up, and whoever is using the browser can simply use their selections.
It’s also useful in academic environments. If you’re doing Web research in several different disciplines you can swap back and forth between a huge list of search engines. Lookpicking lets you pick from any of the ones you’ve added once you start typing in the query. Then, once you’re on that page you can continue to search from its index before switching off to another site’s search.
One thing to note is that this has been classified as an "experimental" Firefox add-on, so if you want to skip the Mozilla user registration to download it, you can grab it here
Tags: Lookpicking, Lookpick, Firefox, Search engines
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Fake WordPress site releasing backdoored code
November 7, 2008
Don’t mistype “wordpress.org” because you could end up downloading compromised code. Some hackers have set up www.wordpresz.org. The code sends cookie contents to a hacked program hosted on wordpresz.org and could expose passwords and other identifying information.
UPDATE – Looks dead now.
The backdoored pluggable.php file attempts to send the stolen data to wordpresz.org/tuk.php which is still accepting cookies if the requests are properly formatted. The spoof is a nearly perfect combination of social engineering, typosquatting and the natural EstDomains connection as the domain registrar, nearly perfect in the sense that they couldn’t duplicate the whole WordPress.org potentially raising suspicion at the end user’s end.
The site is on the same IP address as a fake pharmacy site, proving that scammers always ring twice.
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Featured Freeware: Stick
November 7, 2008
Taking a cue from real-world Post-It notes, Stick provides an equivalent product for your computer desktop. A few differences from other sticky note programs make this a valuable asset for any PC.
The most noticeable is that notes, when closed, turn into tabs you can then append to the sides of your screen. This makes keeping your desktop tidy a snap. In addition to basic text notes, you also can create Explorer notes, which are actual Windows Explorer windows. You can navigate the file system from within these or even use them for Web browsing.
Each note features a variety of customization options such as window color, transparency, autohiding, and font choices. Though it does lack a few features of the more advanced sticky note apps, you should give Stick a try for its ease of use and excellent implementation of tabs.
Tags: Stick, freeware, sticky notes, post-it notes
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Obama-themed malware on the rise
November 7, 2008
Within hours of settling the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday, spam seen worldwide began incorporating the name and image of Barack Obama, according to various security vendors. The U.K.’s Sophos reported 60 percent of all spam seen by the lab on Wednesday was in some way Obama related.
One piece of spam alleges to contain a link to video of Obama’s acceptance speech. If you follow the video link within the e-mail message you will be taken to a Web page where you’ll be asked to update your Adobe Flash Player with a file, adobe_flash9.exe, first. This is not an official Adobe update file and downloading this file may in turn infect your computer with a Trojan.
Sophos named the Trojan Mal/Behav-027. F-Secure named it W32/Papras.CL. Sunbelt Software also has a blog about this particular piece of spam.
Meanwhile, Websense is reporting a separate threat. An e-mail appears to be an interview with the new president elect. The e-mail features embedded links to a video site that attempts to install a file, BarackObama.exe. Downloading this file may infect your computer with a Trojan.
Tags: security, Sophos, Sunbelt, F-Secure, Websense, Barack Obama, Adobe Flash
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An Obama presidency: Good, bad news for technology
November 7, 2008
When Barack Obama becomes president in January with a strongly Democratic Congress, he’ll have the chance to push a technology policy that relies more on government subsidy and regulation than that of his immediate predecessor.
In Washington and Silicon Valley circles, betting has already begun on who will be the nation’s first "chief technology officer." Could it be Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who conveniently endorsed Obama? Or Vint Cerf? If there’s an opening for a Beltway type, perhaps ex-regulator Reed Hundt, who’s been a proxy for the president-elect?
Obama wants the CTO to "ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century," plus protecting the security of .gov computer networks. That’s a pretty tall task for one person, although there’s some precedent; President Clinton handed much authority for Internet regulation to Ira Magaziner after his administration’s health care debacle.
Any administration will find health care to be a massive project, especially one that likely will be distracted by the Iraq occupation and a recession. Enacting new government regulations aimed at health care records and their electronic storage is an obvious first step that’s already been kicking around Congress for a while.
On copyright, the conventional thinking is that Democrats are more likely to align themselves with the recording and movie industries’ wishes. That may not be the case here: it was John McCain who talked up more aggressive enforcement of copyright law domestically, while Obama said "we need to update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation, and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated."
That is, of course, intentionally vague. Obama was also vague when we asked him whether he wants to amend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to let Americans make a single backup copy of a DVD or computer game they legally purchase. He said only that he’d support it "in concept."
Internationally, though, Obama would not take an obviously different approach than the policies that the Bush administration has followed and that a McCain administration would have. His Web site says that "China fails to enforce U.S. copyrights and trademarks" and that additional international enforcement and standards are needed.
Congress and free trade
For technology firms, a substantial downside–and one that’s difficult to overstate–is how hostile a solidly Democratic Congress and White House could be toward free trade.
Obama doesn’t have the ideological bias toward free trade that Clinton had and is certain to face strong protectionist pressure from within his own party. After a handful of Democrats joined Republicans to approve the Central America Free Trade Agreement in 2005, the 15 dissidents were hounded by their own party and by labor activists. Only a rare politician would take that risk again.
Democrats’ populist streak could hurt technology companies in other ways as well. Obama has promoted more aggressive antitrust actions, which could hurt Silicon Valley companies like Yahoo and Google that are already reeling from the scrutiny of a supposedly free-market Republican administration. Additionally, Obama has only promised to expand the H1-B visa program temporarily.
More tax dollars diverted to universal broadband is a goal often promoted by the Democratic party, and Obama’s CTO would at the very least influence how such a goal is met. The Obama campaign has enthusiastically called broadband access the way to a more perfect democracy, and Democratic members of Congress like Rep. Anna Eshoo of California have promoted the idea.
Eshoo’s resolution, however, does little beyond call for more work to be done. Finding the funds to create wider broadband access could be a challenge; it would have to be paid for by higher taxes, reduced spending elsewhere, or running up the federal deficit.
Michael Powell, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said at a forum in September that it is unrealistic to entertain the "idea that there’s money to get people to dig up streets and put in fiber. National broadband policy is probably going to have to be a lot more subtle."
Net neutrality is another open question. It was a striking difference between the two major party presidential candidates: Obama wanted new government regulation of the Internet, and McCain was skeptical. Some prominent technologists including Cisco Systems’ Robert Pepper, Carnegie Mellon University’s Dave Farber, and Internet founding father Bob Kahn are skeptical too.
Because politicians tend not to like to seek out trouble, a resolution will probably wait until a federal appeals court deals with Comcast’s appeal of a related order by the FCC. Comcast claims the FCC does not have the authority to impose Net neutrality regulations and didn’t even follow its own rules when levying them in the first place.
If the court sides with the FCC, it will sap energy from a push for extensive new Net neutrality laws; if the decision goes the other way, look for Congress to get involved. Net neutrality is, after all, the very first issue addressed in Obama’s technology policy platform. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has talked up the idea, and Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) introduced related legislation last year.
Tags: Election 2008, Barack Obama
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In pictures: What’s new in Windows 7? Part 4
November 4, 2008
We look at the features in Microsoft’s newest OS
Where’s my desktop?
If you frequently work with multiple windows and need to grab something off your desktop, you’ll like the ability to quickly take a look. Here’s a Windows 7 desktop before you click on the lower righthand corner of the taskbar…
Oh, there it is!
…And here’s the same Windows 7 desktop shown in the previous slide, but with the windows hidden. Now you can see the desktop itself.
Route music and video from PCs to streaming devices
Windows 7 can route music and video from PCs on your home network to streaming devices on the net.
Tags: Windows 7
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In pictures: What’s new in Windows 7? Part 3
November 4, 2008
We look at the features in Microsoft’s newest OS
Federated Search scans networked PCs
The new Federated Search feature collates results from multiple PCs on a network into one list of results.
Custom theme creation gets easier
Windows 7 introduces a slicker interface for choosing, customising, and/or creating desktop Themes – a feature Microsoft says it will rename Styles before Windows 7 ships.
Take a closer look
The new Magnifier feature lets you enlarge a part of a screen in Windows 7.
Tags: Windows 7
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Late to the Game: Microsoft Office Online
November 4, 2008
Microsoft plans to offer free Web versions of Word (shown here), Excel and other programs by 2010
If you’re one of the two million or so people who use the free, Web-based word processor or other apps from Google or Zoho, it may seem odd to you that Microsoft is still charging $500 for the full version of its desktop Office suite — and that hundreds of millions of people still pay for it. In fact, last year Microsoft brought in about $19 billion, or just under a third of its total revenue, from the business unit that sells Office. And increased sales of Office, in particular, are credited with helping the Redmond, Wash.-based firm beat analyst estimates for first-quarter earnings on Oct. 24.
Goldman Sachs analyst Susan Friar recently called Microsoft a "laggard" in moving to browser-based software. But, in reality, it’s not even a player. Although Microsoft announced on Oct. 27 that it will roll out "lightweight" Web versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote as part of its next release of Office, that release isn’t expected until 2010. Meanwhile, Zoho, which is based in Pleasanton, Calif. and has 500 employees, has been offering its free, Web-based word processor, Zoho Writer, since 2005. Google Docs, which is ad-supported, has been around since 2006.
"I think it’s about time the Office suite is free," says Zoho’s tech evangelist Raju Vegesna. "We paid $500 for an Office suite when the price of the hardware was $5,000. Now the price of the hardware has come down to $500, and it doesn’t really make any sense for a piece of software to cost $500."
The main reason most people still use Microsoft Office, even though they don’t really need it, is because it’s all they know. Rather than risk the potential frustration of figuring out a new application, both companies and individuals continue to shell out for a bunch of familiar programs that, frankly, most of us barely scratch the surface of. (When was the last time, for example, you inserted a formula or recorded a macro in Word)?
And they’re getting better all the time. Zoho has spreadsheet, word-processing, presentation and organizing programs, and lets you work both online and off; it even has an iPhone app. Google Docs, which focuses on collaboration, lets you upload and edit existing Word and PowerPoint files, then chat in real time as you work on presentations and reports with colleagues. Because the applications reside on the Web, developers can quickly eliminate bugs and add bells and whistles, like the ability to insert headers, footers and pagination (all of which were recently added to Zoho Writer). The programs still feel simple to use, so you’ll never feel overwhelmed, and you can edit worry-free, since auto-saving features ensure that you won’t lose any work you haven’t saved.
So here’s what I suggest. Before you pay even the lowest price for Microsoft Office, give Zoho or Google Docs a try. They aren’t confusing, and they won’t make you feel stupid. To make absolutely sure, I became my own guinea pig. I typed this story in Zoho Writer, even though I had never even tried it until this week. So far, so good. Here’s hoping my editor feels the same.
Tags: Microsoft Office Online
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In pictures: What’s new in Windows 7? Part 2
November 3, 2008
We look at the features in Microsoft’s newest OS
Libraries aggregate like content in different locations
Windows 7 introduces Libraries, which are virtual folders that provide easy access to related content, regardless of its location on your PC or even on your network. While the OS will ship with several preset Libraries (Documents, Music, Photos, Video) based on file type, you can create additional Libraries based on criteria you set, such as music genre or photos created on a specific date.
User Account Control Slider gives you greater control over security settings
Vista’s famously annoying User Account Control becomes less annoying: It now lets you control which potential security risks it alerts you to, and which ones it lets slide.
Windows Solution Center replaces pesky systray balloons
The new Windows Solution Center lets you review notifications about potential system problems at your convenience, rather than when you’re in the middle of doing something else
Tags: Windows 7
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In pictures: What’s new in Windows 7?
November 3, 2008
We look at the features in Microsoft’s newest OS
Windows 7 – Microsoft’s long-waited successor to Windows Vista – is expected to ship in 2010, if not earlier. Until now, the software giant has remained tight-lipped on the features in the new OS. However, since its pre-beta code release last week at the Microsoft Professional Developers’ conference, more has been unveiled about Windows 7. We’ve taken a look at the new OS to see just what users will be faced with.
Meet your next desktop: Sidebar dies; Gadgets live
Microsoft has killed the Sidebar in Windows 7, but the Gadgets it contained live on. They simply sit wherever you choose to place them on your desktop
Jump Lists provide easy access to common tasks
Both the Taskbar and the Start Menu now include Jump Lists – context-sensitive selections of actions relating to a particular application, such as files you’ve used recently or access frequently.
Device Stage: one-stop access to hardware-related tasks and information
Device Stage is a new feature that gathers all of the information (everything from drivers and applications to manuals) relating to a particular phone, printer, or other piece of hardware, and lets you access it from a single window. But it will show up only if device vendors create an XML document based on a Microsoft template, a document that also must be approved by Microsoft. The good news is that such documents are a lot easier to create than new device drivers
– and vendors can stick with the drivers created for Vista.
Tags: Windows 7
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