Arjay's Tech stuff Bank

FOR SALE: RED VANILLA LAPTOP BAG

2009-01-26T16:34:00.000+08:00

for sale:

red vanilla laptop bag
features:

synthetic leather
padded laptop compartment
matching cable/cosmetic kit
inner pocket for gadgets
pen holder and key clip
larger outer pocket for documents
metal feet for added protection
straps long enough to wear on shoulder

design: workday
size: for 14 to 17 inch laptops
color: hot pink
bought at power mac for 3.6K, 8 months ago but rarely used
very good condition
with: bag container and pouch

selling price: 2K
RFS: i have a smaller MSI wind.. it used to be bag for my HP artist edition lappy..

For Sale: 2nd hand AUTHENTIC GUCCI watch

2008-09-29T07:33:00.000+08:00

model number: YA105508
with box, plastics, card, tags..

originally bought in sydney

in very good condition (only used during special occasions)

selling price:20k neg

price at prestige sm: around 28k.. cheap na yan!

Canon officially introduced EOS 50D

2008-08-27T05:47:00.000+08:00

Those leaked EOS D50 specs on Canon’s Chinese site? Real. The official announcement came today and everything tallies with what we saw on Friday. 15.1 megapixel CMOS sensor (with 1.6x crop factor), a big 3″ LCD screen, Live View (for previewing images on the screen), ISO running up to 12800 (in a special, try-not-to-use-it hidden mode) and, possibly the most interesting, Canon’s new image processing chip, the DIGIC 4. In digicams, the two things which impact the picture quality (after the light has made it in through the lens) are the sensor and the image processor. The 50D is the first Canon camera to use the new DIGIC 4 chip, and it appears to be an incremental upgrade.

If you have a fast enough memory card (Compact Flash) then you’ll get a whopping 90 jpeg images in a single burst, at up to 6.3 fps. RAW shooters see a smaller improvement: you get 16 shots before the camera pauses for breath. The new DIGIC also includes face detection (up to 35 faces!) and in-camera vignetting controls with supported EF lenses. This last gets the rather fancy title of “Peripheral Illumination Correction”. There is also built-in sensor cleaning along with dust removal software which, in a fit of alliteration, Canon has named “Dust Delete Data Detection”. Other goodies include HDMI out and nine-point autofocus. The price for all these whizz-bang features? $1400.

Source: Wired/RLSLOG

iPhone Jailbreak Now Quickpwned

2008-08-22T17:14:00.000+08:00

For all of you that care, or have/getting an iPhone - iPhone Jailbreak Now Quickpwned: No Need for iTunes-Based Restore

News is just out of a new way to jailbreak your iPhone, and this time the tool is specifically designed to work “quickly and easily, without requiring a full restore.” Quickpwn has been released as a beta, intended to complement the main PwnageTool. It works with iPhones and iPod’s running 2.0.1 firmware, and operates very quickly without needing iTunes to rebuild/restore your device afterwards. This beta version is basically feature-complete, but lacks a “funky UI” (they’re adding that soon) and is currently windows only (other OS’s are “coming soon”). It’s available here. Keep your eyes open for a complete version (though remember that even though it’s development software, it’s apparently “impossible for this to permanently damage your device”).

Link to Windows Version of Pwnage Tool: Rapidshare

Source: RLSLOG

LightZone.v3.0 Retail (tee)

2008-08-22T13:23:00.003+08:00

LightZone: built for photography

LightZone fully embraces fearless visual experimentation.

LightZone provides a unique visual approach to digital photo editing, allowing you to focus on what you want to do with your photos, not how you do it. All operations are live and have an immediate effect upon which you can make new editing decisions. No more guess work. The software allows you to enhance photos in a simple and natural way, without the steep learning-curve found in many other software programs.

Features:

LightZone is 100% non-destructive

Connecting the dots

Built-in intelligence

Unlimited layers

Powerful selections and mask

Instant Styles, Intelligent Tools, Powerful Workflow

Check out the introduction videos here.

LightZone is 100% non-destructive.

From editing RAW photographs or JPEG, TIFF or DNG photos, LightZone is a complete digital image editing application in a single software package. LightZone's intelligent editing features help adjust exposures, boost overall color, correct color shifts and white balance errors, selectively sharpen or blur images or parts of images, remove dust spots and reduce the noise often found in high-ISO digital images.

Connecting the dots

LightZone is the only photo-editor where every operation is a smart operation.

No more tweaking of confusing histograms, no more guess-work; a single slider in LightZone can adjust any of the 16 exposure values in an image: individually, grouped or selectively.

Built-in intelligence

Safely experiment with change in exposures without changing color or vice versa. Instantly create High Dynamic Range images, without the need to take multiple exposures. All operations are performed in a 16-bit dynamic range for maximum editing flexibility.

Unlimited layers

An unlimited tool stack allows for unlimited edits to the photograph, in which the hierarchy determines in what order these edits are performed.

Edit instructions are stored as non destructive operational layers (rather than pixel layers). Individual edit operations can be sequenced differently and turned on or off.

Powerful selections and mask

While many accurate adjustments can be made with tools without selections because of LightZone's advanced image analysis technology, sometimes a specific region requires more attention or isolation.

LightZone's live-regions with feathering can be changed in shape, or moved even after the edit is applied. Regions are linked to individual tools, allowing for very detailed editing operations.

Instant Styles:

High Dynamic Range
High Dynamic Range sunset
Black and White Toning
Blue filter Black and White
Contrast and Pop
InfraRed Look
Lomo Look
Palladium Toning
Sepia
Wow
Soft Wow
Page Soft Wow
Shadows opener
Alien InfraRed
Style creation
Import and Export Styles

Intelligent Tools:

Relight tool
Colorized Black and White
Hue/saturation
Noise reduction
Modify live RAW adjustments
Selections and Masks
White Balance
ZoneMapper
Sharpen
Blur
Color Balance
Clone and stamp
Red-eye removal

Powerful Workflow:

Embedded edit tool-stack in JPEG
Selective edit history
Metadata editor & preference
Lift and batch-apply Styles
Image stack and unstack
Smart select
Send and preference
Help and advice
Convert
Drag-and-drop
Photo browser
Batch processing
New camera RAW support
Rank and sort
Soft Proof
Printing with automatic resize
RAW selective editing
Lightroom integration
iPhoto® integration
Aperture integration

Size: 25.74 MB (rar file)
OS: Windows
Info: Homepage, NFO file
Download links: Torrent (thepiratebay)

Casper v5.0.1294 (iND)

2008-08-22T13:11:00.000+08:00

Description: Casper creates a complete copy of your system hard disk, including the operating system, applications, settings, and all of your data. Casper makes it easy to keep a complete and instantly bootable backup replacement hard disk for your system. Should your system hard disk fail or become corrupted by a virus or spyware attack, you can boot and run your computer directly from your backup hard disk and be up and running again in seconds!

Release Name: Casper.v5.0.1294-iND
Size: 3.75 MB, ind-c86a
OS: Windows OS
Info: Homepage, NFO file
Download links: Download Multi-Hosts, Search Torrent (NTi)

Source: RLSLOG

Study: bank websites totally insecure

2008-07-27T19:38:00.000+08:00

A soon to be released University of Michigan study will show that more than 75% of banking websites have serious security flaws. According to Atul Prakash, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, these flaws are design issues that cannot be quickly solved with a simple patch or upgrade. Prakash, along with doctoral students Laura Falk and Kevin Borders, studied 214 financial institutions and found that the most serious issue was the placement of contact or security information on insecure pages. Prakash argues that this can easily lead to phishing attacks by the placement of bogus numbers that lead to scam artists.

Approximately 55% of the sites had this problem, while 47% placed login boxes on insecure pages. Prakash is recommending that banks use SSL protocol to secure their login pages. Why any bank still has a non-SSL login page is beyond me. Rounding out the top five security problems are poor email security, broken chain of trust where banks redirect users to insecure outside sites and inadequate user id and passwords. 31, 30 and 28 percent of websites had these problems, respectively. Prakash’s study titled “Analyzing Web Sites for User-Visible Security Design Flaws” will be released later this month on his website here.

Source: TG Daily, Rlslog

Neuxpower NXPowerLite v3.6.2

2008-06-24T00:04:00.002+08:00

Good content takes up space. Even in small companies, large Microsoft Office files can cause significant storage, backup and transfer problems. In larger organisations these problems quickly scale up to become major issues.
NXPowerLite radically reduces the size of Word, Excel and PowerPoint files in seconds, with no discernible loss of quality - making them easier to use, store and share. It does this by removing any excess baggage and converting embedded graphics to the most appropriate file format and resolution.
Traditional compression methods, such as zipping, have little effect on image-heavy files - which is where NXPowerLite really excels. And with NXPowerLite, there’s no need to unzip your files before using them.
Files remain in their original format and retain all their functionality, so they can be opened and edited by anybody with a copy of Microsoft Office. File recipients do not need to have NXPowerLite on their machines.

Features:

* Outstanding compression of image-heavy files
* Files remain in their original format
* No unzipping required

Source: RLSLOG

AAA Logo 2008 v2.10

2008-06-24T00:02:00.002+08:00

This logo design software will help you to design professional logo image for printing or the Web in minutes! Choose one of 100+ pre-made logo templates as a start point for your logo project or create a blank logo project and make your own logo from scratch.

AAA Logo has it’s own vector-based logo objects library with more then 2000 customizable logo elements. Exactly the same technique to create logo images using pre-designed logo elements is used by almost all professional logo designers to create logos for their clients.

Features:Publish Post

- Not just for Logo Design !
- Design logos / business graphics in any industry
- Create professional, high resolution images in clicks
- Get started without having to open a manual
- Get a lean, slim business graphics design machine

Source: RLSLOG

Demonoid back online baby!!!

2008-04-12T23:05:00.000+08:00

A famous BitTorrent tracker Demonoid is back online after months of downtime. The former administrator of the site, Deimos, had to shutdown the project in Canada. There were numerous attempts in relaunching Demonoid under different hostings all over the world, but it always failed after few days. It’s just a few moments since a new administrator took over the site after Deimos stepped down from his function due to personal reasons and relaunched it.

A quick look into WHOIS discovers that Demonoid is now hosted by American server hosting company Softlayer - I could probably imagine a better country for hosting a torrent website or tracker because of legal climax regarding peer to peer websites in the USA, but it seems to work fine now. And as we know the importance of reliable trackers in the BitTorrent community.

MacBook Air hacked in less than 2 minutes

2008-03-30T21:58:00.000+08:00

Mac OS X’s reputation for security was tarnished Thursday when a team of researchers from Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) managed to hack a MacBook Air in two minutes using a zero-day vulnerability in Apple’s Safari 3.1 Web browser. The ISE security researchers — Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel — were participating in the “PWN to OWN” competition at the CanSecWest security conference, which began Wednesday in Vancouver, British Columbia. “Pwn” is computer gaming slang for “own,” as in conquer. The “p” typo serves to heighten the humiliation of defeat by emphasizing that the loss came at the hands of a youth who can’t even spell or type correctly. The term has also come to be used in security circles.

Contest participants had their choice of trying to hack an Apple MacBook Air running OS X 10.5.2, a Sony Vaio VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.10, or a Fujitsu U810 running Vista Ultimate SP1. During the first day, when attacks were limited to network attacks on the operating system, no one managed to compromise any of the systems. That changed Thursday when attacks on default client-side applications — Web browser, e-mail, IM — were allowed. The ISE team won $10,000 from security firm TippingPoint Technologies for compromising the MacBook Air. The undisclosed vulnerability in Safari 3.1 has been shown to Apple and no further information about it will be revealed until Apple can issue an update, TippingPoint said.

Source: CRN, InfoWeek, RLSLOG

Places in the Philippines that I've been to

2008-03-15T01:16:00.003+08:00

My Lakbayan grade is C+!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

PayPal users BEWARE!

2008-03-11T07:48:00.004+08:00

I received an email today which from the looks of it, it came from PayPal so I opened and read it. Here's the actual email:

As I clicked on the link and a new browser window opened, it showed the PayPal website that Im used to. However, before I could do anything, my handy dandy Firefox jumped in!

So beware! You might get into a serious headache if your PayPal account gets hacked.

GPS tracked express pizza delivery

2008-02-26T11:08:00.001+08:00

Picture this: you order a pizza and you’re really hungry but you have no idea how long you’ll have to wait. Couple of minutes later, your stomach starts to growl twice as loud and you start cursing the guy who’s working his ass off to get your high fat-low nutrition junk food to your doorstep. So, how do you settle your unsettling stomach and your throbbing desire to shoot down the pizza guy? Well the answer, like always, is GPS tracking. As if it isn’t hard enough to try and eat low-calorie foods, pizza chains are starting to attract customers by offering GPS technology so we can track the progress of how our pizza order is going. An 11-store chain of Papa John’s restaurants in northern Alabama have been using an online-tracking system created by a startup business called TrackMyPizza. In this case, customers can watch online as their deliveries move street by street to their front doors.

Domino’s, on the other hand is planning to allow its customers to go to its web site and see when their pizza has been prepared, cooked and sent out the door. But, alas, there’s no tracking of the pizza delivery driver. According to Information Week, the TrackMyPizza company and technology was developed by two telemetry scientists who spent 10 years tracking U.S. military missiles, but they’ve gone from war and peace to a piece of the pizza pie. These two guys, Randy Younger and Ken Blankshain, are looking into other tracking possibilities. They own the URL, TrackMySchoolBus.com, which I suppose will attract a lot of worried parents whose lives are made hell from running down the street, dragging their kids behind, screaming, “For the love of everything holy, I beg you, wait up!”

Source: RLSLOGS

Google launches $30m lunar competition

2008-02-23T01:55:00.002+08:00

More than three decades after the last Apollo astronauts roamed the lunar surface, disparate universities, open-source engineers and quixotic aerospace start-ups are planning to start their own robotic missions to the Earth’s barren cousin. The return to the moon is part of the Google Lunar X Prize, a competition sponsored by Google with $30 million in prizes for the first two teams to land a robotic rover on the moon and send images and other data back home. At Google’s headquarters here on Thursday, 10 teams from five countries announced their intention to participate in the competition. They include a team led by William L. Whitaker, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and renowned roboticist; an affiliation of four universities and two major aerospace companies in Italy; and one group that is a loose association of engineers coordinating their efforts online.

Addressing the X Prize teams and journalists, Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, compared his company’s support of the competition with other companies’ sponsorship of yacht races. “The idea we can help spur the return to the moon and maybe even do it more quickly than some of the national plans is really exciting to me,” Mr. Brin said. Google will pay $20 million to the first team that lands on the moon, sends a package of data back to Earth, then travels at least 500 meters and sends another data package. The second team to accomplish the goals will win $5 million. Bonuses are offered for feats like visiting a historic landing site and finding and detecting lunar ice, but the prize money starts to shrink if the mission is not accomplished by 2012. It looks the Earth is getting too small for Google!

Source: RLSLOG/NY Times

Good News: The writers’ strike is officially over

2008-02-16T10:23:00.000+08:00

Striking Hollywood writers will be back at their keyboards Wednesday after voting overwhelmingly to end a 100-day walkout that essentially shut down the entertainment industry. More than 92 percent of the Writers Guild of America members who cast ballots Tuesday in Los Angeles and New York voted to end their work stoppage over residuals for writing in the digital age, including new media and the Internet. The new deal is for three years. “The strike is over. Our membership has voted, and writers can go back to work,” said Patric Verrone, president of the WGA’s West chapter.

Michael Winship, president of WGA’s East guild, said, “The success of this strike is a significant achievement not only for ourselves but the entire creative community, now and in the future. It is not all that we hoped for, and it is not all we deserve,” Verrone said when a tentative deal was announced Saturday. But he added, “This is the best deal this guild has bargained for in 30 years.”Leslie Moonves, chief executive officer of CBS Corp., told The Associated Press, “At the end of the day, everybody won. The vote meant that the Academy Awards ceremony on February 24 will be the usual scripted gala, the AP reported. I really look forward to see new episodes of my favourite shows…

Source: CNN

Eavesdropping on Bluetooth Headsets

2008-02-13T09:52:00.000+08:00

3 Exciting programs I found today

2008-02-10T10:54:00.000+08:00

Source: RLSLOG

Sandboxie v3.22 Incl Keymaker-EMBRACE

Sandboxie allows you to run your browser, or any other program, so that all changes that result from the usage are kept in a sandbox environment, which can then be deleted later. This allows you to remove traces of your internet or PC activities, as well as reverse any changes to your Favorites, home page, registry and more. Even files that were downloaded during a sandbox session will be wiped after the sandbox is cleared. The program runs in the system tray and if you want to start a sandboxed session, simply launch your browser, or any other program via the tray icon, rather than the regular way.

Release Name: Sandboxie.v3.22.Incl.Keymaker-EMBRACE
Size: 375.29 kB (384,295 bytes), e-sand22

Homepage - NFO - Rapidshare

OnlineEye Pro v2.1.1-TE

OnlineEye detects your incoming and outgoing TCP/IP packets and can tell you the speed, the amount of hops and the destination, plus more advanced info, of your packet.

Onlineeye is a small, easy to use TCP/IP protocol monitor which can be used to see your exact throughput on both incoming and outgoing data - whether you’re using a modem, cable modem, DSL, or even local network. Onlineeye doesn’t just stop there, it lets you see how quickly your data goes from your computer to another computer on the internet; it even will tell you how many other computers your data must go through to get there!

Program Features:

Time and volume recording
Realtime Internet speed checker
Internet and Network security features
Modem monitoring

Release Name: OnlineEye.Pro.v2.1.1-TE
Size: 4.16 MB (4,357,180 bytes), teoep211

Homepage - NFO - Rapidshare

Virtual CD v9.2-YAG

With help of VirtualCD you can create backup images of your physical CD/DVDs and emulate them in virtual drive. Something similar as Daemon Tools Pro and Alcohol 120%, but seems to me more powerful in features.

Description:

With Virtual CD you can create compressed 1:1 copies (virtual CDs/DVDs) to your hard drive. You can then store your originals safely in a cabinet! Your virtual CDs are then available with a simple click or even automatically with the autostart of the corresponding program.

With Virtual CD you receive up to 23 virtual drives that behave just like the “real” physical CD/DVD drives - except that they are up to 200x faster! The only noise you hear is music or the applictions sounds, and all you need to do is play, work and enjoy.

New in Virtual CD v9:

Microsoft Windows Vista certified drivers
Up to 23 virtual CD/DVD burners
Snapshot function for CD/DVD combinations
Comparison Wizard for images and source CDs
USB flash drive support for virtual drives
Virtual hard drive with encryption, 64 MB and up
Incremental additions to images
Insert virtual CDs in any physical drive
Improved support for CD-recording software
All Toolbox programs optionally available over desktop shortcuts
Improved API and scripting functions

Release Name: Virtual.CD.v9.2-YAG
Size: 55.01MB
Links: Homepage, NFO
Download: Rapidshare.com, Torrent

Tunebite Platinum v5.0.335.30-YAG

2008-02-04T01:08:00.000+08:00

TuneBite Platinum allows you to remove the DRM protection on many video and audio formats, which if you are a legal payee, you will probably need!

Legally remove DRM copy protection from music, audio books and videos. Universal converter with support for over 50 audio and video formats. The conversion maestro with support for customizable output profiles. Automatic, multi-speed copying and conversion in digital quality, with support for all of today’s standard audio, video and DRM formats.

Program Features:

Copies DRM-protected music and audio books
Converts unprotected audio files
Mobile device synchronization
Customizable video output profiles
Audio Stream Recorder

Release Name: Tunebite.Platinum.v5.0.335.30-YAG
Size: 20.19 MB (21,175,411 bytes), yagtb3p*

Source: RLSLOG

Homepage - NFO - Torrent - Rapidshare

vLite shrinks the size of Windows Vista to 10%

2008-01-31T21:23:00.000+08:00

A Croatian college student has created a utility that installs a seriously stripped-down Windows Vista, saying the heft of Microsoft’s biggest desktop OS was just too big to believe. “Who can justify a 15GB operating system?” asked Dino Nuhagic, a fifth-year student from Split, a Croatian city on the Adriatic. Not Nuhagic, or the uncounted users who have turned to his creation, vLite. vLite is a free program that lets users pick and choose which Vista components, hotfixes, drivers and even language packs are installed, then builds a disk image that can be burned to a DVD for unattended installation of the operating system.

“Why did I do it? Well, it’s performance and work environment,” said Nuhagic when asked why he came up with vLite. “Performance, that’s easy to explain. The less things running, the more responsive the OS. But the environment part is where it gets down to personal preference.” Those preferences include options for leaving out virtually every component of Windows Vista, from the minor — such as the bundled screensavers — to the major, such as the firewall or Universal Plug and Play. Some vLite users, in fact, have made it a contest of sorts to come up with the puniest-possible installation package for the OS. While Microsoft recommends that users set aside 15GB of hard disk space to install its pride and joy, Nuhagic’s fans boast of squeezing it into an image file as small as 515MB that takes up just 1.4GB on the hard drive. More details and download available at vlite.net.

Source: RLSLOG, Information week

MySpace FriendBlasterPro v9.1

2008-01-31T21:17:00.000+08:00

Grasp the power of a site which receives over 1 billion hits per day, to your advantage when marketing your product, service, event, or bands. Marketing with FriendBlasterPro through MySpace accounts is the cutting edge way to advertise to a large audience and being cost effective at the same time.

Program Features:

Target your market based on a members age, sex, geographic location, interests, and more.
Gather friend(s) id’s from browsing the groups, forums, friend lists, classifieds or any other area of MySpace.
Gather friend(s) id’s from Google!
Auto Messenger that allows you to send out messages to all of your friends or to any specified target market.
Send message along with Friend Request feature that allows you to send both a message and a Friend Request to the same person.

Release Name: MySpace.FriendBlasterPro.v9.1-TE
Size: 2.82 MB (2,958,416 bytes), temfbp91

Source: RLSLOGS

Homepage - NFO - Torrent - Rapidshare

Ex-men (youtube)

2008-01-18T03:09:00.000+08:00

Got nothing to do and have a broadband connection doing nothing? Try these just for fun:

I'll update the links as soon as the next episode will be released. Have fun.

Apple unveils ultra-thin MacBook Air

2008-01-17T08:58:00.000+08:00

Looking to build on the success of its iPod and iPhone devices, Apple Inc. introduced several new products including an ultra-thin laptop computer, dubbed the Macbook Air, and a much-anticipated online movie rental service. The new Apple notebook computer’s major attribute is its sleek profile: it’s about three-quarters of an inch thick and weighs three pounds. The Macbook Air features a full-sized keyboard, a 13-inch screen, a built-in camera, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, all powered by an Intel Corp. dual core chip. Appearing on stage at the company’s Macworld expo, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said the computer, which he called “world’s thinnest notebook,” will cost $1,799 and is scheduled to ship in about two weeks. Ultramobile notebooks represent about 6% of the 270 million notebooks expected to the sold this year. Apple may benefit from good timing. Asus International Ltd.’s recently introduced Eee PC has topped sales charts at Amazon.com and is usually sold out at retail stores.

Apple’s CEO also launched the computer maker’s much-anticipated online movie rental service and unveiled an updated Apple TV device that will let viewers bypass their computers and rent movies directly from their widescreen TVs. Mr. Jobs said iTunes users can rent new-release movies to watch over their computers, iPods or iPhones for $3.99 for a 30 day period. Older titles will rent for $2.99 for the same time period. The service has the support of all major Hollywood studios including Walt Disney Co., Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Sony Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, News Corp.’s Fox, Lionsgate and New Line, Apple said. Mr. Jobs also disclosed Apple had sold more than four million iPhones worldwide in the 200 days since the company’s trend-setting smartphone was launched. Is this going to be an another year of big success for Apple? It seems so right now…

Source: Zdnet, Macworld, WSJ, Rlslog

Wikia: new search engine from Wikipedia creators

2008-01-08T01:50:00.000+08:00

An internet search engine that draws on human recommendations is due to make its first public appearance on Monday, although even its founder warns that it will take some time to tell if the experiment can yield useful results. Created by Jimmy Wales, the man behind online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the search service will let users rate the relevance of results on a five-star system, then apply that information to shape future search results shown to others. It will also draw on ideas from online social networking to try to establish reputations for its users and decide whose ratings should carry the most weight. The success of Wikipedia, now one of the 10 most visited sites on the internet, has guaranteed huge interest in Mr Wales’s latest experiment, known as Wikia. In an interview, he said that his aim was “to build a completely freely licensed, open-source search engine” that would be far more transparent than Google and other existing services, which keep their algorithms for ranking search results a secret.

Sceptics have argued that Mr Wales’s more open approach risks exposing his service to the “spammers” who try to trick search engines into promoting their sites. Mr Wales himself predicted that it would take “a minimum of two years” for his service to yield results that were competitive with existing search giants. The new Wikia search engine will start with results drawn from its own machine-powered ranking, then try to refine these with ratings from actual users. While the service is open to anyone, only those who sign up, and disclose their identities, are able to submit ratings. Unlike the encyclopedia, which is run by a not-for-profit foundation, the Wikia search engine is being built as a commercial venture, and Mr Wales said he hoped eventually to make money from selling advertising on the site. Does he have any chance against the mighty G?

Source: MSN, FT,RLSLOG

Product Key Explorer v1.9.6

2007-12-22T12:21:00.000+08:00

Product Key Explorer can help you to search a CD Keys & serial numbers of installed applications on you PC. Useful if you lost or forgot serial number.

Description:

Product Key Explorer is a powerful utility that can help you to recover lost product key (license CD key) for over 200 popular products (including Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Office 2003, Office 2007 Professional, etc.) Product Key Explorer automatically recovers serial keys of the current system and retrieves product keys from network computers. With this software you will be able to track the number of software licenses installed in your business, find and recover a lost or forgotten product keys, save and keep an up-to-date backup of all your software product keys in a central location.

Download Here

Source: Rlslogs

20% of world computers infected with rootkits

2007-12-15T01:24:00.000+08:00

Malware researchers at Prevx have highlighted what they are calling a ‘massive growth’ in the number of PCs harboring rootkit infections. More than 725,000 PCs were scanned using the Prevx CSI malware scanner over a two-month period. Of the around 291,000 users who scanned their PCs during October 2007, some form of spyware or malware was found on one in six. Significantly, although rootkits were detected on 15.6% of PCs during October 2007, that figure had risen to 22% by early December. Rootkits are often ‘dropped’ or buried by other infections. They then modify a PC’s operating system to hide themselves from both the user and any security products installed on the computer. By so doing rootkits can allow criminals to remotely monitor, record, modify, steal and transfer data from the victim’s PC.

Some rootkits are undetectable by conventional antivirus and antispyware applications. A tech-savvy user may believe his or her computer is ‘clean’, and unwittingly pass on increasingly valuable personal and financial data. Since 1 December 2007, 114,891 new users have run Prevx CSI with rootkit-detection features enabled. Of those PCs, 1,678 had what Prevx describes as ’significant rootkit infections’. That equates to 1.46% or approximately one in 70 systems, which is almost 15 times higher than the one in 1,000 rootkit-infected PCs previously estimated by industry experts. These botnets counting hundreds of thousands PCs have to work with something, right?

Source: PC World

Warning sounded over ‘flirting robots’

2007-12-09T09:48:00.000+08:00

Those entering online dating forums risk having more than their hearts stolen.

A program that can mimic online flirtation and then extract personal information from its unsuspecting conversation partners is making the rounds in Russian chat forums, according to security software firm PC Tools.

The artificial intelligence of CyberLover’s automated chats is good enough that victims have a tough time distinguishing the “bot” from a real potential suitor, PC Tools said. The software can work quickly too, establishing up to 10 relationships in 30 minutes, PC Tools said. It compiles a report on every person it meets complete with name, contact information, and photos.

As a tool that can be used by hackers to conduct identity fraud, CyberLover demonstrates an unprecedented level of social engineering,” PC Tools senior malware analyst Sergei Shevchenko said in a statement.

Among CyberLover’s creepy features is its ability to offer a range of different profiles from “romantic lover” to “sexual predator.” It can also lead victims to a “personal” Web site, which could be used to deliver malware, PC Tools said.

Although the program is currently targeting Russian Web sites, PC Tools is urging people in chat rooms and social networks elsewhere to be on the alert for such attacks. Their recommendations amount to just good sense in general, such as avoiding giving out personal information and using an alias when chatting online. The software company believes that CyberLover’s creators plan to make it available worldwide in February.

Robot chatters are just one type of social-engineering attack that uses trickery rather than a software flaw to access victim’s valuable information. Such attacks have been on the rise and are predicted to continue to grow.

Source RLSLOG/CNET