PC & IT 03 (Jun 10 - Dec 23)

PC & IT 03 (Jun 10 - Dec 23)

Postby winston » Thu Jun 03, 2010 6:57 am

"First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII -- and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure."

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Re: PC & IT 3 (Jun 10 - Dec 10)

Postby winston » Wed Jun 30, 2010 8:45 pm

Sony warns its VAIO laptops may overheat, cause burns


AFP
AFP Global Edition

Jun 30, 2010 06:28 EDT

Japan's Sony on Wednesday issued a warning to customers worldwide that a system glitch affecting more than half a million of its VAIO laptop computers may cause overheating and possible burns.

The electronics giant said a heat-monitoring chip in some of its VAIO F and C series models that were launched in January this year could be defective, leading to possible overheating, a company statement said.

Although the defect has not been known to cause personal injuries, the firm said it received a total of 39 complaints from overseas customers saying that the shape of their computers became distorted from overheating.

The glitch affects a total of 535,000 laptops worldwide, of which nearly half is in the United States and the remainder in Japan, Europe and China.

Sony said it is offering consumers a software application download with which to correct the malfunction.

Source: AFP Global Edition
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Re: PC & IT 3 (Jun 10 - Dec 10)

Postby kennynah » Wed Jun 30, 2010 9:42 pm

seriously....apple's macbook/air good or not? app friendly?

any major inconveniences?
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Re: PC & IT 3 (Jun 10 - Dec 10)

Postby iam802 » Wed Jun 30, 2010 9:49 pm

I have a very old PowerBook that is still working (think about the time before they switch from PowerPC chips to Intel).

And most important (to me), my trading platform will work on it.
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Re: PC & IT 3 (Jun 10 - Dec 10)

Postby cif5000 » Thu Jul 01, 2010 7:23 pm

winston wrote:The electronics giant said a heat-monitoring chip in some of its VAIO F and C series models that were launched in January this year could be defective, leading to possible overheating, a company statement said.
This is not the first time for overheating problem. My TZ is in the recall list for the battery overheating but I don't dare to let these guys at the service center touch it. That's not all. The number 3 key on my keyboard is not working. Each time, I got to press numlock and then L to get the 3. The screen has pixel damages. Occasionally, about once a week, I will get a blue screen and the computer restarts. I am still using it as it's less than 2 years old. So much for paying a premium....but it does draw some "authority" when I use it for my work at the customer sites. I am switching to Apple very soon.
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Re: PC & IT 3 (Jun 10 - Dec 10)

Postby winston » Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:39 pm

Attacking the edges of secure Internet traffic

Hackers probe the edges of secure Internet traffic to craft attacks

JORDAN ROBERTSON
AP News

Jul 30, 2010 00:08 EDT

Researchers have uncovered new ways that criminals can spy on Internet users even if they're using secure connections to banks, online retailers or other sensitive Web sites.

The attacks demonstrated at the Black Hat conference here show how determined hackers can sniff around the edges of encrypted Internet traffic to pick up clues about what their targets are up to.

It's like tapping a telephone conversation and hearing muffled voices that hint at the tone of the conversation.

The problem lies in the way Web browsers handle Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, encryption technology, according to Robert Hansen and Josh Sokol, who spoke to a packed room of several hundred security experts.

Encryption forms a kind of tunnel between a browser and a website's servers. It scrambles data so it's indecipherable to prying eyes.

SSL is widely used on sites trafficking in sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, and its presence is shown as a padlock in the browser's address bar.

SSL is a widely attacked technology, but the approach by Hansen and Sokol wasn't to break it. They wanted to see instead what they could learn from what are essentially the breadcrumbs from people's secure Internet surfing that browsers leave behind and that skilled hackers can follow.

Their attacks would yield all sorts of information. It could be relatively minor, such as browser settings or the number of Web pages visited. It could be quite substantial, including whether someone is vulnerable to having the "cookies" that store usernames and passwords misappropriated by hackers to log into secure sites.

Hansen said all major browsers are affected by at least some of the issues.

"This points to a larger problem — we need to reconsider how we do electronic commerce," he said in an interview before the conference, an annual gathering devoted to exposing the latest computer-security vulnerabilities.

For the average Internet user, the research reinforces the importance of being careful on public Wi-Fi networks, where an attacker could plant himself in a position to look at your traffic. For the attacks to work, the attacker must first have access to the victim's network.

Hansen and Sokol outlined two dozen problems they found. They acknowledged attacks using those weaknesses would be hard to pull off.

The vulnerabilities arise out of the fact people can surf the Internet with multiple tabs open in their browsers at the same time, and that unsecured traffic in one tab can affect secure traffic in another tab, said Hansen, chief executive of consulting firm SecTheory. Sokol is a security manager at National Instruments Corp.

Their talk isn't the first time researchers have looked at ways to scour secure Internet traffic for clues about what's happening behind the curtain of encryption. It does expand on existing research in key ways, though.

"Nobody's getting hacked with this tomorrow, but it's innovative research," said Jon Miller, an SSL expert who wasn't involved in the research.

Miller, director of Accuvant Labs, praised Hansen and Sokol for taking a different approach to attacking SSL.

"Everybody's knocking on the front door, and this is, 'let's take a look at the windows,'" he said. "I never would have thought about doing something like this in a million years. I would have thought it would be a waste of time. It's neat because it's a little different."

Another popular talk at Black Hat concerned a new attack affecting potentially millions of home routers. The attack could be used to launch the kinds of attacks described by Hansen and Sokol.

Researcher Craig Heffner examined 30 different types of home routers from companies including Actiontec Electronics Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc.'s Linksys and found that more than half of them were vulnerable to his attack.

He tricked Web browsers that use those routers into letting him access administrative menus that only the routers' owners should be able to see. Heffner said the vulnerability is in the browsers and illustrates a larger security problem involving how browsers determine that the sites they visit are trustworthy.

The caveat is he has to first trick someone into visiting a malicious site, and it helps if the victim hasn't changed the router's default password.

Still: "Once you're on the router, you're invisible — you can do all kinds of things," such as controlling where the victim goes on the Internet, Heffner said.

Source: AP News
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Re: PC & IT 3 (Jun 10 - Dec 10)

Postby kennynah » Wed Sep 01, 2010 4:32 pm

Image

this is old news....but new to me....

in Jan2009....industry makers were already producing very large storage cards....these are small in size and can fit into some of of the very latest Digital SLR cameras...that's how small and slim they are...

SDXC cards can store up to 2TB of data... and today, you can walk into funan/simlim and get a SDXC Class4 or 10 64GB for anything between S$280-650 ....

with such small but high storage cards, they make my 4GB machine look like a jar in a stone age cave.... :lol:
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Re: PC & IT 3 (Jun 10 - Dec 10)

Postby iam802 » Thu Sep 02, 2010 11:56 am

Saw a brief mention of the new broadband in SG on AsiaOne (<< can't find the article anymore)

--
Key point:
- allows new entrants into the broadband market
- the new entrants are offering much lower pricing for broadband plans (eg. $50+ for the 100Mbps)

One can just compare it to the offerings from the telcos (eg. SingTel, Starhub).

Definitely, we can see more choices (and much more affordable plans) now.

And this...is good for the average consumers.
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Re: PC & IT 3 (Jun 10 - Dec 10)

Postby millionairemind » Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:29 pm

I am not sure if there is a need for such speed given what the "average" users do in a typical day.

I am just plain happy with my 2-8 mbps line as it serves my needs.

Its just like HDB. Plain old affordable housing is good enough. Y do all those DBSS etc...etc.... In the end of the day, its just a roof over your head for 80% of the "average" population and it fits their needs.
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Re: PC & IT 3 (Jun 10 - Dec 10)

Postby iam802 » Thu Sep 02, 2010 1:44 pm

It depends on the plan that one has (and experience we go through).

I think I have a 6Mbps plan as well.

The new 100Mbps plan from alternative providers is going to be about the same pricing as what I am paying for now.

Slight difference between HDB and a broadband is the initial investment.

For property, it is huge with a loan to be saddled with.

For broadband, it is just like switching telco. Give me better coverage at same price, I will jump. (In this case, better speed and customer service at same price... I will ditch the existing providers).

In other words, customer loyalty needs to be earned.
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