PortScan sniffs out network activity
If you ever help others out with their PC problems then you’ll know that network issues can be particularly troublesome. And just getting started, finding out exactly what might be connected to the system you’re looking at, can take quite some time.
Having a network scanner to hand can greatly simplify the troubleshooting process, though, by carrying out most of the low-level inventory checks on its own. And PortScan is a great example of this tool type.
Adobe responds to reported hack, closes connectusers.com
Users are becoming accustomed to Adobe security flaws these days. After all the company did occupy five of the top-10 spots in the recent Kaspersky report. While the "occasional" Flash bug can be dealt with, having one's user information stolen is a whole different story, but that is exactly what sources are claiming and Adobe is confirming by shutting down the service in question.
"Adobe is currently investigating reports of a compromise of a Connectusers.com forum database. These reports first started circulating late during the day on Tuesday, November 13, 2012. At this point of our investigation, it appears that the Connectusers.com forum site was compromised by an unauthorized third party. It does not appear that any other Adobe services, including the Adobe Connect conferencing service itself, were impacted".
A few very smart people can make the difference
A couple weeks from now we’re going to start serializing my 1992 book Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can’t Get a Date. It’s the book that was the basis for my 1996 documentary TV series Triumph of the Nerds and ultimately led to this column starting on pbs.org in 1997.
What goes around comes around.
Microsoft Surface review for real people
I’ve spent the past couple of weeks reading review after review of Microsoft Surface. I feel like 90-percent of them were not written for me. You see, I’m your average user. I’m the average Joe user with a strong interest in the field of technology. I don’t care about pixel densities, or all the other niggles on performance tech geeks fight about all the time.
What matters to me: Does a particular device allow me to not only consume content but create it as well. And Surface accomplishes those two goals tremendously well. I write this review on a Surface RT using Microsoft Word in Office 2013.
Apple iPad 4 review
I’ve been thinking about getting a new tablet for a while. Although there’s nothing physically wrong with my iPad 2, I’ve been itching for a bit of new tech in my life and there are some truly excellent choices available this year, including the newer "new" iPad, the iPad mini, Microsoft Surface, and the Google Nexus 7 and Nexus 10. All of which are definitely worth considering.
A friend let me borrow his Nexus 7 for a week, during which time I realized a small tablet was not for me, so that also ruled out the iPad mini. The Nexus 10 looked appealing, and so was on my shortlist. Microsoft Surface I discounted because even though I now use Windows 8 daily, I still don’t really like it and the current lack of great apps for Surface is a bit of a deal breaker. Maybe in the future…
Facebook gets a taste of Windows 8 with Cover Creator
We already know that Facebook is a pretty popular social network and Windows 8, if Steve Ballmer is to be believed, appears to be off to a good start, but what if you combined that cool new Start screen with the Facebook timeline? Then you would get the new Cover Creator just released by Microsoft.
The company posted the new app today accompanied by a very brief description -- "It’s a new Facebook app from the Windows team that connects to your social stream to create a new Cover Photo. It’s fast and easy and has a degree of customization so you can pick and choose which photos and apps appear in certain tiles."
Portrait Professional 11 offers even better ways to fix your ugliness
Anthropics Technology Ltd. on Wednesday pushed out a major update to its Portrait Professional "airbrushing" software, including new touch-up functionality, better handling of multiple faces in a single image, new face modeling and 3D skin processing, and much more.
There are a lot of solutions available to the consumer looking to gently touch-up photographs. Some are built into smartphones, some are available as freeware, some are available as plug-ins to common desktop software. It's all kid's stuff compared to Portrait Professional.
Skype password reset vulnerability fixed, 'small number of users' affected
A password reset vulnerability that was reported by TNW prompted Skype to scramble to protect its users from having their accounts compromised today. The Microsoft-owned communications company issued a zero day fix on Wednesday which protects users with multiple Skype accounts attached to a single email address.
"Early this morning we were notified of user concerns surrounding the security of the password reset feature on our website. This issue affected some users where multiple Skype accounts were registered to the same email address. We suspended the password reset feature temporarily this morning as a precaution and have made updates to the password reset process today so that it is now working properly. We are reaching out to a small number of users who may have been impacted to assist as necessary. Skype is committed to providing a safe and secure communications experience to our users and we apologize for the inconvenience."
You can thank Microsoft for iPhone's retreat before the Android Army
Two months ago, I declared Android winner in the smartphone wars. The victory is now broader, in a total route of all competing operating systems and in process driving down iOS market share. That's right, after more than five years of near-constant growth, Apple's platform retreats before the Android Army.
Android's global smartphone OS share rose a stunning 19.9 points year over year in third quarter, according to Gartner. That's to 72.4 percent, up from 52.5 percent. Meanwhile iOS fell to 13.9 percent from 15 percent.
Dropbox breaks the 100M user mark, users tell stories for 10GB of extra storage
Popular cloud storage service Dropbox has surpassed 100 million users in its five years of activity. To celebrate the event, the company will give 10GB of extra storage to users that post 160-character stories about how they use Dropbox. The company will pick a hundred of its favorite ones to be declared as winners.
Apart from the publicity generated by this promotion, there is another side of the coin. Users that post their stories provide an interesting insight on how cloud storage integrates with different types of lives and professions. Obviously Dropbox is used for sharing files, right? Right. So how are people using it differently?
Get Modern UI look without Windows 8
The Windows 8 UX Pack 6.5, which emulates large portions of the Windows 8 classic desktop, including non-Aero effects and the new Charms bar, in Windows 7, gains two minor changes in this release. First, the default system drive icon has now been set to the same as that in Windows 8, while the other makes the Charms Bar Immersive UI the default setting.
Fixes include resolving issues with logon screens not changing properly on OEM-bundled machines, plus permission problems with third-party applications. Version 6.5 also ensures the Start orb shows up correctly after a system restart.
CyanogenMod 10 reaches stable status, CM 10.1 will be released
A Little more than a month after CyanogenMod 10 M2 was released, the team behind the popular custom Android distribution announced the third monthly build. Like before, the focus is on stability. And since Android 4.2 was pushed to AOSP yesterday, there is some information on the future CyanogenMod 10.1 as well.
The work on CM 10 is not over just yet, even though the latest release is labeled as "stable" or "LTS" (Long Term Support). Nightly builds are still hitting supported devices and bug reports are expected to keep coming as well. But with more than 10,000 installs since yesterday, the stable version is taking off quite well.
Ashampoo Burning Studio 12 supports 128GB BDXL discs
Ashampoo has announced the availability of Burning Studio 12, its flagship disc burning suite. And top-of-the-new features list this time is probably the program’s improved ability to handle larger burning jobs.
Support for 100GB and 128GB BDXL discs means you’re able to write much more data to an individual disc, for instance, and if there’s still too much data then the new Disc Spanning feature will automatically spread the job over as many discs as is required.
Lost or deleted a video file? Try MediaRecovery 8
Berlin-based O&O Software GmbH has launched O&O MediaRecovery 8, a brand new version of its Windows recovery tool that specializes in restoring lost and deleted video, photos and music files.
Version 8, which is also available in 64-bit, comes optimized for Windows 8, plus extends the number of media formats supported and promises to search more thoroughly for missing files, improving the user’s chances of recovering them.
WinLock password-protects and hides applications
If you’re working on some confidential document and need to leave your PC for a while, then locking the system is one way to maintain your privacy. Hold down the Windows key, press L, and only someone who knows your user account password will be able to restore access to the computer.
When you’re working on a shared computer which that need to regularly use, though, this may not seem like such a good idea. What you really need is a tool like WinLock, which can password-protect and hide any application window, yet leaves the rest of the computer freely available for everybody who needs it.
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