How to check if a Web site is safe – Have you been phished? Whether you use a Mac, Windows, or Linux, iOS or Android, there’s a real strong chance that somebody has sent you an e-mail or text message in an attempt to get at your personal information. Data means money, and you’re a big ol’ dollar sign to the bad guys.
Facebook: You Should Only Friend People You Know. Seriously. We’re Not Kidding – After a string of controversies over promiscuous data sharing and account takeovers, social networking giant, Facebook, has released a 13 page guide for users who want to secure their Facebook account. Among other things, the 700 million strong social network is warning its users to only “Friend” people they know.
Ten Tips For Securing Your Google Plus Account – Google’s new social network is growing fast. Before you plunge in, here are a few tips on protecting your privacy.
Mozilla will not axe Firefox version numbers – If you can’t keep track of what version of Firefox you are using now, you’re not alone. That seemed to be why the browser’s developer Mozilla hinted earlier this month that it was thinking of taking a radical step and getting rid of the confusing version numbers for future releases.
Researchers Discover File Used to Hack RSA – Researchers at anti-malware company F-Secure say they have found the actual infected Excel file that was used in the attack on RSA earlier this year, eventually forcing the company to replace millions of its SecurID tokens. The Outlook email message containing the malicious file apparently was uploaded to Virustotal in March and the researchers dug it out this week. (submitted by Michael F.)
Apple will likely win German ban on Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 – Apple manages to hold on to a ban against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany, but it might not extend beyond that anymore.
SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip is a budget iPod shuffle, but better – For just $50, you could get a 4 GB SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip MP3 player with a built-in a micro SDHC slot and a color display that can do everything from play FLAC files to double as your voice recorder.
U.S. Invokes Patriot Act As WikiLeaks Dumps More Data – The U.S. government has reportedly invoked the controversial Patriot Act as a legal basis for demanding data from Internet provider Dynadot about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.
Company News:
Amazon’s Tablet to Cost ‘Hundreds Less’ Than iPad – If the price is right, it will sell–and it looks like Amazon is taking this philosophy very seriously.
Oracle Updates Its VM, Targets Vmware – In launching version 3.0 of its virtual machine, Oracle is making some bold claims: that it scales up about four times better than VMware does, delivers all the storage-management features that VMware offers and costs less to boot.
Twitter Advances Ever So Slowly Toward Total Adoption of HTTPS – Twitter is at the beginning of a process that will eventually make HTTPS browsing a default feature on the popular micro-blogging platform. The company currently is experimenting by turning HTTPS on for a small percentage of users.
Intel to Ship 10-core Xeon Processor in First Half – An Intel spokesman on Thursday said its upcoming 10-core Xeon processor, code-named Westmere-EX, will reach servers in the first half of this year. The chip will succeed Intel’s fastest server chip, code-named Nehalem-EX, which was released last year and includes up to eight processor cores. The company declined to comment on clock speed, but with more cores and improved latency, the Westmere-EX processor will be faster than Nehalem-EX.
Off Topic (Sort of):
It’s official: Facebook makes you take drugs – Everybody knows that if two things are associated, one must cause the other. Clouds lead to rain, eating dinner makes it get dark outside… oh, hang on.
Top ten Internet history myths – PC Pro contributing editor, Davey Winder, has been writing about the internet for more than 20 years. Along the way he’s collected quite a few persistent internet history myths. Now’s the time to do a little debunking. (submitted by Michael F.)
What Steve Jobs means to me: absolutely nothing – Neither dead nor God, Steve Jobs’ has been praised to unprecedented lengths in the past 24 hours. Is the praise always on the mark or does it go too far?
Huge river found flowing beneath the Amazon – An enormous underground river has been reported flowing thousands of feet below the Amazon.
Today’s Quote:
“There will be a time when loud-mouthed, incompetent people seem to be getting the best of you. When that happens, you only have to be patient and wait for them to self destruct. It never fails.”
– Richard Rybolt
Today’s Free Downloads:
InvisibleHand – InvisibleHand discreetly notifies you if the product you’re browsing is available more cheaply from another retailer. The notification provides a convenient link straight to the relevant product page on the competing retailer’s website.
PhraseExpress AutoText – PhraseExpress AutoText combines autocomplete with macros in one versatile free tool that can type phrases, sentences, and other text automatically when the program detects certain keystrokes or manually via hot keys. Its AutoText feature lets you designate abbreviations for frequently used words and phrases such as your address. When you type the abbreviation, PhraseExpress automatically enters the expanded text.
If you found this article useful, why not subscribe to this Blog via RSS, or email? It’s easy; just click on this link and you’ll never miss another Tech Thoughts article.