Below are articles that you might find interesting or useful.
Phishing Sites
A report from VeriSign has shown that many people can't tell whether or not a website is phishing. This puts them at a high risk of fraud. People must become more aware to look for the padlock symbol in the browser address bar.
The same is true of the phishing emails.. always double check before entering any personal information.
Further info at > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
A hacker managed to find documents on Twitter containing confidential
information, then passed them onto TechCruch, a technology bog, who then published them online.Twitter, understandably, are unhappy with Techcruch for allowing it's information to be published.
TechCrunch, are defending their decision to publish the information that is said to be "stolen".
"We publish confidential information almost every day on TechCrunch. This is stuff that is also 'stolen', usually leaked by an employee or someone else close to the company, and the company is very much opposed to its publication."Twitter was not impressed. However they wish to make clear that the stolen documents, which were downloaded and offered to various blogs and publications, are not Twitter user accounts nor were any user accounts compromised. Members of the social network should not fear for the safety of their personal information.
You may have already heard about this, but in Mid July all UK mobiles will be on a directory which will mean that anyone will be able to access the
numbers. All numbers including those belonging to children will be open to cold calling and the general abuse that less scrupulous telesales people subject us too.
It is easy to unsubscribe, but it must be done before the week starting 13th July to make sure that you are ex directory. TRP would like to suggest that you unsubscribed and you may want to suggest it to all your friends and family who have UK mobiles or they could be swamped by unsolicited messages and calls.
With internet privacy always at the tip of most peoples fears, surely this is a wrong move for 118 and I think something should be done about it. I'm open to ideas.
To remove your number go here. (you need your mobile phone with you to do this, they text you a code)
http://www.118800.co.uk
http://www.118800.co.uk/removeme/remove-me.html
For further infomation visit the BBC news report at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8092271.stm
or
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/working_lunch/8091621.stm
Do you keep any important documents on your USB flash drives? Have you made a backup of those files recently? The fact is that “USB Flash Drives” have a limited life span. The memory can be “flashed” only so many times.
This can range from 10,000 to 100,000 times, depending on the type of drive. Some drives have built in circuitry that helps avoid “worn areas” on the memory, but this merely prolongs the inevitable total failure. There are no hard facts as to life expectancy of any drive, so always take a backup of your files. Once the limit to the lifespan of the memory has been reached, the odd cell may not properly remember what was written to it, resulting in corruption. It may only take a single bit of information to be wrong for the entire data contents of a flash memory chip to be lost.
Some tips to help extend life. Firstly because it’s “writing” to the drive that causes the wear, whereas reading has no know affect, it best not run disk “write” intensive applications directly to data stored on the flash drive. An example of this would be a database where the information is being constantly updated. Secondly, never and I mean never, use any type of disk defragmenter. Defragging writes and re-writes thousands of times per session. That’s one sure way to shorten the life of “flash memory”.
So there we have it, “Flash Memory Drives” wear out, but with normal use should last fairly well. As with most technology, the “Flash Drive” is one area that I’m sure we’ll see further improvements to resolve the wear problem, while the drives capacity increases.
With any kind of electrical gadget, one of the biggest problem areas is how
it's powered. If it’s not tried to the mains then we’re looking at a portable power source. Well make way for the new type battery, air-fuelled. Research work, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), led by researchers at the University of St Andrews have come up with a new design that could store ten times the energy of current units.
The STAIR (St Andrews Air) cell should be cheaper than today’s rechargeables too. The new component is made of porous carbon, which is far less expensive than the lithium cobalt oxide it replaces.
The BBC is calling for changes in the TV licensing laws as it is “unhappy” that many people are able to access catch-up TV via the internet without
paying and have plans to introduce an iPlayer licence or increase the cost of the TV licence to cover the iPlayer.There is a possible idea of a subscription service for the iplayer, but nothing has been finalised.
TRP Comments: Once again the Beeb are trying it on. To add further costs to an already bloated license fee is plain and simply wrong. I'm sure that from the many people paying the license, only a small percentage use iplayer.
A simple and cheap way to give your Wi-Fi signal a boost is to make a mini satellite dish. Wrap a cereal bowl with tin foil to get the dome, then place behind your router antenna, facing the direction that you'd like a better reception. And there you have it, almost double the range. Or go to Free Antennas and get the free template EZ-12 to make a wind-sail type antanna.
The Ambulance Service have launched a national "In Case of Emergency (ICE)" campaign.
The idea is that you store the word "ICE" in your mobile phone address book, and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted "In Case of Emergency".
In an emergency situation, ambulance and hospital staff will then be able to quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them. It's as simple as that, and for more than one contact name you can use ICE1, ICE2, ICE3 etc.
Mircosoft's mainstream support for XP should have ended on 14 April
The addition five-year "extended support" for Windows XP will take effect from May 2009. In Microsoft parlance, extended support is the period when all support is fee-based and non-security hotfixes are produced only for corporate customers. Until April of 2009, Windows XP Home and Media Center will remain in what is called "mainstream support," which offers some no-charge support and free updates that don't deal with security issues.
News Corp, headed by Rupert Murdock, will start charging visitors to access
According to a survey by carried out by One News Page, over 70% of regular visitors to news websites, would not be willing to pay to view the content.
I guess Rupert will be losing some hits.....
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