Escondido Computer & Laptop Service and Repairs – 760-705-8230
Category : Computer Security , Google , San Diego Computer Repair
F.A.T.’s new “Google Alarm” browser addon alerts you with sound and visual notification whenever your personal information is being sent to Google servers. Gmail and YouTube gather some user data, but so do “tracking bugs”: Google Analytics, Google AdSense, YouTube embeds, API calls. Currently available for Firefox and Google Chrome.
Category : Internet
There’s more evidence that digital books are upending the publishing industry.
Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc. says it is now selling 80% more downloaded books than hardbacks. Amazon’s download format is for its Kindle electronic reader as well as other devices.
“The Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, in a statement.”Astonishing when considering that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years and Kindle books for 33 months.”
Paperback books, which far outsell hardbacks, were not included in the announcement. Also, Amazon did not disclose sales numbers for the categories.
But it was clear that digital books were on the rise. A survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Wilkofsky Gruen Associates Inc. has shown that although revenue from retail sales of printed books has been stagnant for several years, electronic books were forecast to surge to $1.6 billion in sales in 2010 from $1 billion last year.
Amazon said that for its full second quarter, 143 electronic books were purchased on the site for every 100 hardcover books sold.
There’s more evidence that digital books are upending the publishing industry.
Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc. says it is now selling 80% more downloaded books than hardbacks. Amazon’s download format is for its Kindle electronic reader as well as other devices.
“The Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, in a statement.”Astonishing when considering that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years and Kindle books for 33 months.”
Paperback books, which far outsell hardbacks, were not included in the announcement. Also, Amazon did not disclose sales numbers for the categories.
But it was clear that digital books were on the rise. A survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Wilkofsky Gruen Associates Inc. has shown that although revenue from retail sales of printed books has been stagnant for several years, electronic books were forecast to surge to $1.6 billion in sales in 2010 from $1 billion last year.
Amazon said that for its full second quarter, 143 electronic books were purchased on the site for every 100 hardcover books sold.
Category : Computer Repair , Computer Security , Google , Internet , San Diego Computer Repair
The stable version of Google Chrome received multiple security fixes this week, including four rated as “high,” while the developer’s version adopted an interface tweak to create more room for extension icons.
Google Chrome dev 6.0.453.1 for Windows, Mac, and Linux consolidates the former page control menu into the customization menu that’s accessible from the wrench icon. This clears space on the toolbar for an extra extension icon, as well as giving a stronger visual presence to the cut, copy, and paste options, page zoom controls, and the full screen view toggle. Other minor changes to Chrome dev for Windows include showing previews of images when dragging them, and printing vectors instead of pixels for the built-in PDF plug-in.
The changelog for Chrome dev indicates only that Mac developers continue to work on feature parity, while the Linux version of dev received more substantial changes. These include experimental password-storing support for gnome-keyring and kwallet, though Google advises users to read a post on how to safely test the feature. The PDF plug-in is now available to Linux users, though it’s not on by default. It must be activated in about:plugins.
Google Chrome stable 5.0.375.99 for Windows, Mac, and Linux is a security-fixing release, with four memory corruption repairs labeled “high.” There was also one medium-rated fix that addressed sandboxed iFrames, and four repairs ranked “low” that dealt with modal dialog crashes, print dialog annoyances, invalid image crashes, and a WebGL error. The changelog for Chrome stable also details which groups earned rewards for discovering security holes.
Category : Google , Remote Support
Google Has Android Remote App Install Power, Too
Trailrunner7 writes “The remote-wipe capability that Google recently invoked to remove a harmless application from some Android phones isn’t the only remote control feature that the company built into its mobile OS. It turns out that Android also includes a feature that enables Google to remotely install apps on users’ phones as well. Jon Oberheide, the security researcher who developed the application that Google remotely removed from Android phones, noticed during his research that the Android OS includes a feature called INSTALL_ASSET that allows Google to remotely install applications on users’ phones. ‘I don’t know what design decision they based that on. Maybe they just figured since they had the removal mechanism, it’s easy to have the install mechanism too,’ Oberheide said in an interview. ‘I don’t know if they’ve used it yet.'”
Category : San Diego Computer Repair
The rumor that refuses to die has new life: A report Thursday says an iPhone compatible with CDMA networks is being manufactured for this holiday season.
Taiwanese trade publication Digitimes is at it again, reporting that contract manufacturer Pegatron has the order from Apple for a CDMA version of the iPhone 4 and “is currently using its plants in Shanghai, China, to produce the products.” The report says that the product would be ready by the fourth quarter of this year.
It echoes The Wall Street Journal’s report from earlier this year that Pegatron has been contracted to make a CDMA iPhone.
Verizon’s current network is CDMA, so the report is reviving the idea that a Verizon-compatible iPhone is around the corner. It’s a rumor that has made the rounds for years. And while it’s likely that the iPhone will come to Verizon eventually, by the end of this year seems a bit soon.
For the past four years, Apple has released a new iPhone in early summer, and customers have gotten used to upgrading their phone every or every other year. There are plenty of Apple customers who would be extremely unhappy if they make the jump to AT&T this summer only to be told a few months later that Verizon is now an option.
And then there’s the exclusive contract between Apple and AT&T, which Apple has said runs until 2012. It’s possible the contract terms have changed, but a Verizon spokesperson went on record a few weeks ago saying that there are no plans to offer Apple products in “the immediate future.”
But there are some other clues that there eventually will be an iPhone on Verizon: AT&T has had a lot of well-publicized problems servicing the iPhone and it’s possible Apple is tired of defending the carrier. And AT&T just increased its early termination fee to $325 for smartphones, which could be a sign it anticipates customers could have a reason to jump their contracts earlier than usual.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET)
Category : San Diego Computer Repair
Just felt another quake! 4.8 near Borrego Springs
Category : Internet , San Diego Computer Repair
Before Windows 7 launched, there was a lot of consternation about when Microsoft planned to cut off the supply of Windows XP to netbook makers.
This week, Microsoft officials reminded customers and partners of that deadline date – October 22, 2010. As of that date, “OEMs will no longer be able to pre-install Windows XP Home on new netbook PCs,” Microsoft officials said. (Microsoft announced this cutoff date back in 2008, when Microsoft called netbooks ultra-low-cost PCs, or ULPCs)
There are still a number of XP-based netbooks for sale at retail. But the number of Windows 7 netbooks has been picking up since Windows 7 launched in October. According to NPD’s Retail Tracking Service, as of April 2010, 81 percent of netbooks sold at retail in the U.S. came with Windows 7 preinstalled (according to a new post on the Microsoft “Blogging Windows” site).
A year ago, there was considerable worry about the price Microsoft planned to charge PC makers for Windows 7. The company is believed to charge OEMs about $15 per copy for XP. The rumored price per copy of Windows 7 is closer to $50. (Microsoft officials won’t comment on the record about the exact price per copy the company charges OEMs for any version of Windows.) The thinking a year ago was that PC makers would have to pass that higher cost on to consumers. However, netbooks have stayed cheap. OEMs (and Microsoft) have been maintaining higher margins by selling more pricey form factors, like thin and lights. Windows 7 slates (when they come to market) might fall into this higher-margin category as well.
There also were concerns a year ago as to how well Windows 7 would run on netbooks. Would anything but the lowest end SKUs be too cumbersome to run on low-power processors and/or machines with smaller amounts of drive space? The answer has proven to be no to both. A number of users are running Windows 7 Ultimate — and not just Home or Home Premium — on their netbooks.
Meanwhile, one more Windows-related date reminder: July 13, 2010 is the date when Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 2 reaches the end of support. If you still want/need Microsoft support for XP, you should move to XP SP3 before that date. Extended support — which means paid support plus free security hotfixes — for XP SP3 ends in April 2014.
Category : Computer Security , Internet , San Diego Computer Repair
A big question these days for smartphone users is whether telecommunications providers will continue to offer “all you can eat” data plans or switch to charging by the megabyte. The more important issue–at least from the perspective of the public-policy community–is whether the Federal Communications Commission will have a say in the matter. And recent, seemingly contradictory initiatives by the regulators provide good reasons to believe that the FCC should get out of the way.
In 2007, Comcast, the giant cable company and Internet service provider, faced a marketing problem. A relatively small number of subscribers were hogging huge swaths of bandwidth, as they traded movies and music with others. (Some of the exchange was legal, some of it probably not.) Comcast responded by limiting upload speeds for customers using peer-to-peer networks.
After an investigative reporter from the Associated Press caught the company blocking a transfer of the King James Bible using BitTorrent (leading one blogger to ask, “Why does Comcast hate Jesus?” a couple of advocacy groups, Free Press and Public Knowledge, filed a complaint with the FCC. The agency ordered Comcast to stop.
Three years later, in Comcast v. FCC (PDF), a federal appellate court reversed the FCC’s order. But the court simply ruled that the FCC had overstepped its jurisdiction; it never addressed the legality of Comcast’s behavior.
The irony, of course, is that Comcast ran afoul of the FCC, in part, for failing to use tiered pricing to ration bandwidth.
Comcast, it’s worth noting, could have dealt with its peer-to-peer problem by switching to a pricing model that charged according to use. But the company feared that customers were wed to salad-bar-style pricing and would bolt at the change. Thus, apparently for competitive reasons, Comcast chose instead to block the offending traffic.
Now we can see why. Verizon, which is about to roll out its version of 4G high-speed wireless-data service, says it is planning to charge according to use. Verizon is worried that 4G will make it so convenient to move huge video files over wireless links that it would face a Comcast-like problem, if it didn’t charge by the bucket of data.
Meanwhile, AT&T has beaten Verizon to the punch, announcing that new iPhone customers will pay by the megabyte. (Existing customers with all-you-can-eat plans will be allowed to keep them.)
Verizon’s admission immediately brought forth criticism from the blogosphere. And the FCC wasn’t far behind: it is already preparing new regulations to prevent “bill shock”–you know, when dad finds out that little Jennifer has downloaded every episode of “True Blood” and “The Vampire Diaries,” and stuck him with a $400 cell phone bill.
The irony, of course, is that Comcast ran afoul of the FCC, in part, for failing to use tiered pricing to ration bandwidth. Now, apparently, Verizon has caught the FCC’s attention by deciding to charge according to usage.
The FCC may do no more than require carriers to notify customers when they’ve exceed their allotted megabytes–something AT&T is apparently planning to do, even without a nudge from Washington. Still, we’d much prefer that the FCC stay out of data-service-pricing decisions altogether, letting the carriers adjust to changing technology and market conditions.
Telecommunications markets don’t always get it right. But we doubt that the regulators could do better.
Category : Computer Security , Internet
Every other year, 2600: The Hacker Quarterly throws its Hackers on Planet Earth bash in NYC, and every year, they have elaborate, hackable badges. Lately, these have been OpenAMD RFID badges, whose in-built RFID tags can be hacked, tracked, monitored, spindled, folded and mutilated.
This year’s badge sports its own API, for your hacking pleasure:
PopoutConference attendees will see first hand where human tracking by commercial and government interests may be headed when they are offered an active RFID conference badge.
Participation in RFID tracking is completely voluntary. If you wish, you can request an electronics-free “unpopulated” badge at registration, or simply remove the battery from your “populated” RFID badge at any time. There will be a limited number of the full-featured badges, so register early to be guaranteed to receive one.