Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – November 11, 2011

Maximum PC: How To Erase Your Digital Footprint – Like stepping in wet concrete, these trails we unwittingly leave behind can be tough to erase. With the rise of identity theft, corporate tracking, and the ability of “Big Brother” to access our private data, it is more important than ever for Internet users to be aware of how past and future data can be erased and controlled more effectively.

Hotspot Shield now protects iPhones – Anonymising and VPN-protected Wi-Fi program Hotspot Shield takes its brand of shielding and bandwidth compression to iOS devices and throws in some free Skype hours to sweeten the deal.

Steam has been hacked, user accounts database accessed – Valve has taken the Steam Forums offline and Gabe Newell has posted a message explaining that Steam has been hacked. On Sunday, the Steam Forums were defaced, but remained online. However, further investigation found the hack was more than just for the forum software, the intruder had also gained access to a Steam user database. If you are one of the millions of Steam account holders out there, then be cautious and watch your credit card activity. If you shared your Steam Forum password with other services you use, then go change the password on those services immediately.

Adidas Takes Websites Offline Following Security Breach – Hackers claim to have acquired and posted 500,000 email addresses and clear-text passwords.

Change the Processor Affinity setting in Windows 7 to gain a performance edge – Under specific circumstances and with careful tweaking, you can increase Windows 7 performance using the Processor Affinity setting.

The Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet Will Spark a Revolution – Despite the best efforts of Android tablet vendors like Samsung, the tablet market has been totally dominated by Apple for the last year and, frankly, kind of boring. That is going to change next week. Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble will release 7-inch tablets that are tightly connected to their media ecosystems. Geek.com’s Will Shanklin thinks it will be a revolution.

Roundup of Software Uninstallers – Reviewing IObit vs Ashampoo vs Revo – Today you can find lots of software which helps remove programs and clean up leftover files, folders and registry settings. In theory this is a good thing, as it helps eliminate some of the bloat on your Windows computer. But are these solutions really effective at removing all traces? To find out, I tested some of the most popular applications in this niche, both free and commercial. Let’s see what I discovered. (submitted by Michael F.)

Cloud Services Credentials Easily Stolen Via Google Code Search – The access codes and secret keys of thousands of public cloud services users can be easily found with a simple Google code search, a team of security researchers says.

No Flash Forwarding to HTML5 – The reports this week stating that Flash is dead may be a tad premature. Although Adobe is undoubtedly splitting its bets and putting more emphasis on HTML5, Flash isn’t going away any time soon.

Apple Releases iOS 5.0.1 With Battery Fix – According to Apple’s release notes, iOS 5.0.1 resolves four main issues: fixes bugs affecting battery life; adds multitasking gestures for original iPad; resolves bugs with documents in the cloud; and improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation.

Preparing a business laptop for overseas travel – With threats of cyber warfare heating up, traveling overseas poses security risks that go beyond mere carelessness and petty thiefs. Here are tips to protect employee laptops and the data they carry.

Company News:

Report: Amazon Boosts Kindle Fire Orders to 5 Million - Just days before the Kindle Fire debuts, Amazon is reportedly ramping up orders for the tablet to more than 5 million due to demand, according to a Digitimes report. This is the second Kindle Fire production increase for Amazon; it upped its order volume from 3.5 million to 4 million in the middle of the third quarter, Digitimes said.

Outpost Security receives 9th consecutive VB100 award – Agnitum, developer of highly-rated PC security solutions since 1999, is pleased to announce that Outpost Security Suite Pro, the company’s flagship Internet security product, has received its ninth VB100 award in a row, demonstrating continuing reliability in threat detection and prevention. In total, 44 anti-virus and security suite products were tested against a clean set of 500,000 files totaling around 140GB, against worms and bots set of around 30,000 samples each, and a trojans set containing over 150,000 unique files.

RIM Pledges Continued Development of Flash Player for PlayBook - Research in Motion this week pledged to continue developing Adobe Flash for its BlackBerry PlayBook despite Adobe’s decision to ditch Flash for the Mobile Web.

At long last, Mozilla Releases Lightning 1.0 Calendar – It has been very long time since the has been a 1.0 calendar from Mozilla, you’d have to go all the way back to the Mozilla/Netscape Suite when there was integrated mail to even come close. The 1.0 number however isn’t really about product quality though, it’s about Mozilla developers drawing a line in the sand and finally declaring the milestone.

Off Topic (Sort of):

NASA Releases Stunning Video of Near-Miss Asteroid – A massive asteroid paid Earth a very close visit Tuesday and astronomers were able to capture stunning imagery of the near-miss rock, including a mini-movie put together by NASA.

20 Pre-Black Friday Deals – Get a head start on holiday shopping while dodging malls and lines, with these great pre-Black Friday deals for laptop computers, smartphones, cameras, headphones, and more.

The 10 Most Epic Tech Fails – Not every tech product launched becomes as iconic as Microsoft Windows or the Apple iPad. Some are downright flops. Most of the items featured here managed to survive longer than celebrity Kim Kardashian’s 72-day marriage to Nets basketball player Kris Humphries. But all of them were ultimately just as doomed.

Lifehacker: The No-BS Guide to Boosting Your Immunity and Avoiding the Common Cold – The runny nose, hacking cough, sore throat, headache—it’s no wonder people resort to all sorts of absurd remedies to cure the all-too-common cold. We talked to experts to get a better idea of the tried-and-true things that actually work, and got a stuffy-nose full of commonly held myths that you should avoid.

Walmart Black Friday Deals: HDTVs, Laptops, Consoles – Walmart’s Black Friday circular has bee posted online and for ambitious shoppers who venture out at midnight, the store will have a number of deals on TVs, PCs, and gaming consoles.

Today’s Quote:

“If failure doesn’t make you a loser, then success doesn’t really make you a winner”

-      Michael Arrington

Today’s Free Downloads:

Little Voice Commander – Little Voice Commander encourages toddlers to speak and experiment by showing pictures of words they are likely to know, such as “dog,” “apple,” or, well, “baby,” whenever a word is spoken or when a key on the keyboard is pressed. A sound file also speaks the word out loud.

Protector Plus – Windows Vulnerability Scanner – Protector Plus – Windows Vulnerability Scanner checks your system for Windows Vulnerabilities. It guides you to update with the right patch to make your system secure.

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