Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – July 24, 2012

16 PC Mysteries Solved! – Our digital detectives uncover the truth behind some of tech’s most baffling questions.

Get Organized: Setting Up a Family Computer – If you’re going to share a PC or Mac with your family, you’ll want to make sure everyone has the access they need, but also some sensible restrictions. The latest edition in our Get Organized series shows you how to manage user accounts, enable parental controls, and set up remote access.

Anonymous hackers cripple Aussie government websites – International hacking group Anonymous took at least 10 Australian government websites offline in a series of escalating attacks over proposed changes to privacy laws. The Australian arm of the group has warned it will continue the attacks on “.gov.au” sites until any plans to force ISPs to store user data and make it further available to security services are shelved. (recommended by Mal C.)

Hotel cardkey locks said to be vulnerable to bypass hack – Locks used in more than 4 million hotel rooms can be defeated with some inexpensive hardware and some software, a security researcher demonstrates for Forbes.

Web apps are coming in Firefox 16 – Now that Mozilla’s Firefox cross-platform trains are back on schedule, the browser prepares for Web app support and interactivity with the upcoming Firefox OS.

5 Things You Need to Know About Cropping – Cropping is an essential photo skill–for example, most of the monthly Hot Pic photo contest winners are cropped, to improve on the original composition. But have you ever taken the time to learn the Crop tool’s secrets? This week, I have five things you should know about this unassuming little tool.

Too Busy for that Software Update? Survey Says: Join the Club – Most consumers need to see an update prompt between two and five times before downloading and installing the software, according to this new report.

Five YouTube video downloaders worth a look – If you’ve ever taken the time to sift through all of the clutter, you probably discovered that there are plenty of hidden gems buried deep within YouTube. Unfortunately, YouTube does not provide an option to download videos, which can be handy if you want to watch them when no Internet connectivity is available (such as on a plane). Fortunately, there are plenty of YouTube downloaders available.

Microsoft explains how Windows 8 smokes Windows 7 – Microsoft outlines Windows 8 acceleration improvements vs. Windows 7. Faster rendering of text, geometry, and images are explained.

Security:

‘Dead Trigger’ Now Free in Google Play Thanks to Piracy – “Unbelievably high” rates of piracy on Android devices have driven Madfinger Games to drop its 99-cent Dead Trigger game price all the way to zero.

Hacker allegedly cracks Tesco discount barcodes – What if you could buy anything at Tesco for whatever price you wanted to pay? A hacker believes he has managed to crack the grocery giant’s discount barcodes.

Microsoft-Skype Snooping Accusations Push All the Paranoia Buttons – Hold the phone, Internet, before deciding whether Microsoft has engineered a backdoor to allow Skype wiretaps. Has Microsoft has figured out a way to bug Skype calls? A report published in Slate late last week suggests this might maybe possibly be theoretically true — cue the InterWeb’s full-blown paranoia party.

If you launch a DDoS attack against Amazon, it’s unwise to brag about it – Authorities in the United States have charged two men in connection with a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack that crippled websites such as Amazon.com in June 2008.

Record number of phishing websites in the wild – The number of brands targeting by phishing attacks sustained an all-time high of 382 in February and March, while cybercrime gangs deployed a record number of phishing websites during the same quarter, according to the APWG.

Man who spied on cheating wife’s email has charges against him dropped (because she was snooping back) – A US man has been cleared of all charges for secretly reading his wife’s email to determine if she was having an affair. She was, it turns out.

Company News:

VMWare’s Misstep Could be Microsoft’s Gain – VMware and Microsoft have been locked in a heated battle to win over the SMB. With the announcement of VMWare CEO Paul Maritz’s exit and a new Hyper-V R3 soon to be shipped with Windows Server 2012 RTM, could Microsoft finally unseat VMWare’s dominance in the virtualization space?

German Appeals Court Bans Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.7 in Europe – Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.7 was banned in Europe by the Duesseldorf Higher Court on Tuesday because it found the tablet infringes on Apple’s design rights and looks too much like the iPad.

Australian Court Irked by ‘Ridiculous’ Apple, Samsung Patent Fight – Apple and Samsung have made their way down under once again to continue waging their global patent battle, but not everyone is pleased to see them.

Amazon Offers to Pay Vocational Training for Warehouse Staff – Amazon is offering to cover 95 percent of the cost of vocational training courses to help its warehouse staff pursue jobs in other careers, including many that Amazon does not offer, the company said Monday in a letter posted on its home page.

Apple, Motorola Appeal U.S. Patent Case Dismissal – Just when you thought it was over, Apple and Motorola are going back for more.

Webopedia Daily:

Cat-7 – Short for Category 7, Cat-7 network cabling is used as a cabling infrastructure for 1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet, or GbE) and 10GBASE-T (10-Gigabit Ethernet, or 10 GbE) networks. The Cat 7 standard provides performance of up to 600 MHz (1000 MHz for the Cat-7a, or Augmented Category 7 standard) and can be used up to a maximum length of 100 meters.

Off Topic (Sort of):

67,000 phones to be lost or stolen during the Olympics – Numbers of smartphones and other portable networked devices have exploded over the past few years. As a result, this year’s Games will see the largest-ever risk of corporate and personal data loss during an Olympics period, with an estimated 214.4 terabytes of potentially sensitive data likely to be lost or stolen – an equivalent of 200 million books’ worth of data. 50,000 mobile phones are lost or stolen in the London area over any two-week period.

Does Ouya Mark a Kickstarter Tech Bubble? – Kickstarter may not be a scam, but with the massively overfunded Ouya; is the crowd funding site creating an over-inflated tech bubble of consumer products? Lead Mobile Analyst, Sascha Segan offers his insight.

Why Windows 8 has businesses in stitches – An upgrade to Windows 8 is not even on the radar of the majority of businesses, with most firms yet to fully make the switch to Microsoft’s previous OS according to a Gartner analyst

Judge hands Web patent troll Eolas a shovel, orders it to dig own grave – Even in the infamously pro-patent troll U.S. District Court of East Texas, Eolas can no longer get away with its claims to have patented the Web. For years patent troll Eolas has gotten away with intellectual property lawsuit murder. Stick a fork in them. They’re done.

Today’s Quote:

“Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself.”

–     A. H. Weiler

Today’s Free Downloads:

EnhanceMySe7en Free 3.6 – You will get everything needed for maintaining Windows 7 in a perfect condition. The program offers tools that take care of the registry, disk space and its defragmentation, installed software, HDD temperature and all sorts of things related to system’s health.

PC Tools AntiVirus Free Edition – With PC Tools AntiVirus Free Edition you are protected against the most nefarious cyber-threats attempting to gain access to your PC and personal information. Going online without protection against the latest fast-spreading virus and worms can result in infections within minutes.