Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – January 15, 2010

New IE hole exploited in attacks on U.S. firms – The vulnerability affects Internet Explorer 6, IE 7, and IE 8 on Windows 7, Vista, Windows XP, Server 2003, Server 2008 R2, as well as IE 6 Service Pack 1 on Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Microsoft said in an advisory on Thursday afternoon.

Free Up Hard-Drive Space, Fast – Need to clear some storage space on your hard drive? Here’s how to put it through a crash diet and free up a few gigs right now.

Battle of the $99 Video Cards – It’s been an open secret for years now that, even if the only games you care about are low-intensity ones like World of Warcraft, The Sims 3, or Zuma’s Revenge, a discrete video card is the way to go. Integrated graphics are okay for as much as Windows Aero, but beyond that, taking the strain off the CPU almost always improves your computing experience.

Want really secure Gmail? Try GPG encryption – If you want to take a significant step in keeping prying eyes away from your electronic correspondence, one good encryption technology that predates Google altogether is worth looking at. It’s called public key encryption, and I’m sharing some instructions on how to get it working if you want try it.

Cheap Windows PCs push Apple into #5 spot: Once again, price is king – It seems that computer sales sky-rocketed during the fourth quarter of 2009, and that while Apple showed strong gains, strong sales from Windows OEMs has pushed the company into fifth place.

Google’s internal spy system was Chinese hacker target – New information indicates that Chinese hackers targeted Google’s internal spy system which collects data on all its users.

HANDS ON: Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate 1 – Mozilla seems to be taking its time bringing out Firefox 3.6, but the release candidate is finally here. Is it worth the wait?

Want your face in Lego? There’s an app for that – Creating Lego masterpieces no longer requires money, skill, or creativity. iPhone users can now download a free and officially licensed app that creates them from your photos.

JavaScript Hack Enables Flash on iPhone – A rather clever programmer has managed to get the iPhone to run interactive apps created using Adobe’s Flash platform. And because it works inside the Safari browser, it isn’t subject to the dictatorial rules of Apple’s App Store.

Off Topic:

Oops:Truth-in-Advertising – Gallery (submitted by Dar).

How and Where to Donate to Haiti (and Avoid Scams) – You’ve probably seen a lot of news, emails, tweets, and other messages about helping Haiti after a devastating earthquake. Here are sites where you can help and donate, and information on avoiding the sad likelihood of fake charity scams.

Scientists experiment with liquid invisibility cloak theory – A team of scientists believe that silver-plated nanoparticles suspended in water could help make a real-life invisibility cloak.

Could your driveway give you cancer? Scientists find carcinogens in dust – Pave your driveway recently? Scientists have discovered that some homes with black parking lots have been found to have surprisingly large doses of carcinogens in their household dust.

Today’s Quote:

“Timing has got a lot to do with the outcome of a Rain dance”.

–     Anonymous

Today’s Free Downloads:

Giveaway of the Day: WinX DVD Ripper Platinum – DVD Ripper Platinum is proved to be the fastest DVD ripper software to convert DVD movies to popular video and audio formats, including AVI, WMV, FLV, MPEG, MP4, 3GP, MP3 and much more. Besides, it also enables you to transfer the DVD movies to portable devices such as iPhone, iPod, Apple-TV, PSP, PDA, Zune, Mobile phone and so on. (The program is available for $29.95, but it will be free for our visitors as a time-limited offer).

YoWindow – YoWindow lets you see the weather in your local area without actually having to find a window and look outside. This cunning screen saver gets local weather information and then draws a pretty picture of rain, snow, or sunshine, as appropriate. It will even show you the weather tomorrow–just click the date, and you will see the image update to the (projected) weather yet to come.

Flickr.Net Screensaver – Flickr .Net Screensaver displays Flickr images as your screensaver. You can specify which images you’ll see based on such criteria as tags, groups, or the user who generated the image.

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