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Google rolls out real-time search, Near Me Now, extended personalization
Over time, searches from PCs and mobile phones will grow even "more personalized." But what about user privacy and search results that give you "the truth"?
Intel's marriage of CPU and GPU not ready for prime time
Although there will be an Intel component this month that can compute and plot in parallel, Betanews was told today, it won't be based on Project "Larrabee."
An alternative to Research in Motion's enterprise e-mail? There's an app for that
Good Technology today released an iPhone app compatible with its enterprise e-mail solution.
Playing catch-up in 2010: Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian
Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia are each working on improved mobile operating systems. But could these efforts add up to too little, too late?
Windows fix for TLS security bug still forthcoming, won't be Tuesday
Anyone looking for a fix for last month's discovery of a potentially serious security hole in TLS and SSL may have to wait until everyone is ready to act together.
Not the first, not the last, technology predictions for 2010
Carmi Levy | Wide Angle Zoom: The real truth is probably that what went around in 2009, will come around to haunt us next year.
Google Goggles: Hands on with the Shazam of the Real World
Google today unveiled Goggles, its visual search lab for Android devices that identifies objects by sight.
Microsoft: Windows 7 Family Pack wasn't 'pulled,' it just sold out
If you hurry, you may still be able to find the last Family Pack upgrade editions hanging around retail store shelves, but probably not so much online.
Clever iPhone game returns after being bumped over a name dispute
The game's simple concept and multitude of platforms and puzzles manage to pull off a retro, 8-bit style that's reminiscent of an old Atari game given a modern makeover.
Report: Microsoft to randomize Europe's browser screen choices
The fact that "A" is for "Apple" was apparently at the heart of browser vendor objections to Microsoft's alternative to listing IE first.
Will Nokia's plans further alienate American consumers?
A look at Nokia's plans for the coming years does little to shine up the company's increasingly dull image.
Macintosh Office:mac 2001
By Justin Jenkins on November 28, 2000, 5:16 PM
12 Comments
This month Microsoft’s latest incarnation of Office hits the store shelves, but don’t get too excited it’s gonna be for Macintosh. Office:mac 2001 as it has been rebranded, repackaged, and updated with new Mac-only features, it's designed specifically for anyone with a PowerPC-enabled Mac.
"Mac users are unique users," explains Microsoft Group Product Manager Mary Rose Becker “They want things to act differently, feel differently and look differently. She continues: "We had three design goals in mind: the ability to simplify different tasks with the project gallery; taking control of information with Entourage; and a Mac-like interface with the ability to integrate with other applications like FileMaker."
Microsoft: Far From Violation
By Justin Jenkins on November 27, 2000, 6:48 PM
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Microsoft today officially denied it held a monopoly or violated antitrust law, and it asked a federal appeals court to throw out a lower court ruling that seeks to separate the company. In a 150-page brief submitted prior to oral arguments set for February, Microsoft said District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled inaccurately that Microsoft’s business practices were anti-competitive. "Far from violating the antitrust laws, Microsoft's conduct was pro-competitive, producing enormous consumer benefits," the company filed in its brief.
Microsoft argued that the "entire proceeding" was "infected with error." And it said Judge Penfield ordering breaking up the company was much too "radical relief."
PHP 4.0.3, Security-Oriented Release
By Justin Jenkins on October 11, 2000, 8:41 PM
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Zeev Suraski sent word that PHP 4.0.3 has been released. As this is mostly a security-oriented maintenance release, it is therefore strongly recommended for all users of PHP to upgrade to it. As well the Win32 version has been beefed up with a lot of loadable modules. Download the source or the Win32 binaries.
11 Oct 2000, Version 4.0.3 - Fixed a possible crash in -a interactive mode (Zeev, Zend Engine) - Added mysql_escape_string() (Peter A. Savitch and & Brian Wang) - Fixed many possible crash bugs with improper use of the printf() family of functions (Andi) - Fixed a problem that allowed users to override admin_value's and admin_flag's (Zeev) - Fixed PostgreSQL module to work when the link handle is omitted (Zeev) - Fixed returning of empty LOB fields in OCI8. (Thies) - Added Calendar module to default Win32 build (Andi) - Added FTP module to default Win32 build (Andi) - Fixed crash in the POSIX getrlimit() function (alex@zend.com) - Fixed dirname() under certain conditions (Andi) - Added --with-imap-ssl to support SSL'ized imap library in RH7 and others (Rasmus) - Fixed possible crash bug in parse_url() (Andi) - Added support for trans sid under Win32 (Daniel) - IPv6 support in fopen (Stig Venaas) - Added the shmop extension. It allows more general ways of shared memory access. (thanks to Ilia Alshanestky and Slava Poliakov (Derick) - Added the ability for CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS to accept an associative array of HTTP POST variables and values. (Sterling) - Added the CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER option to curl_setopt(). (Sterling) - Added the curl_error() and curl_errno() functions. (Sterling) - Changed ext/db not to be enabled by default (Jani) - Fixed building Apache SAPI module on SCO UnixWare (Sascha) - Fixed writing empty session sets to shared memory (tcarroll@chc-chimes.com) - Added support for BSD/OS make (Sascha) - Added improved URL rewriter (Sascha) - Fixed readdir_r() use on Solaris (Sascha) - Improved HTTP headers for private-caching (jon@csh.rit.edu, Sascha) - Added new function session_cache_limiter (jon@csh.rit.edu, Sascha) - Added ftp_exec to the ftp functions (thanks to ) (Derick) - PEAR: add last executed query as debug info in DB errors (Stig) - PEAR: allow multiple modes in PEAR_Error (Stig) - Made the Sybase CT module thread safe (Zeev) - Added second argument to array_reverse() that indicatese whether the original array keys should be preserved. (Andrei) - Clean up htmlspecialchars/htmlentities inconsistencies. (Rasmus) - PEAR: renamed DB_GETMODE_* to DB_FETCHMODE_*, added setFetchMode() in DB_common to set the default mode, added some MySQL tests (Stig) - Made eval() and several other runtime-evaluated code portions report the nature and location of errors more accurately (Stas) - Added an optional parameter to wordwrap that cuts a string if the length of a word is longer than the maximum allowed. (Derick) - Added functions pg_put_line and pg_end_copy (Dirk Elmendorf) - Added second parameter for parse_str to save result (John Bafford) - Fixed bug with curl places extra data in the output. (medvitz@medvitz.net) - Added the pathinfo() function. (Sterling) - Updated sybase_ct module and its sybase_query to use high performance API. (Joey) - Added a more configurable error reporting interface to DB. (Stig) - Added is_uploaded_file() and move_uploaded_file() (Zeev) - Added several directives to php.ini - post_max_size, file_uploads, display_startup_errors - see php.ini-dist for further information (Zeev) - Worked around a bug in the libc5 implementation of readdir() (Stas) - Fixed some potential OpenBSD and NetBSD crash bugs when opening files. (Andi) - Added EscapeShellArg() function (Rasmus) - Added a php.ini option session.use_trans_sid to enable/disable trans-sid. (Sterling) - Added the Sablotron extension for XSL parsing. (Sterling) - Fixed a bug in checkdate() which caused < 1 years to be valid (Jani) - Added support for an optional output handler function for output buffering. This enables transparent rendering of XML through XSL, transparent compression, etc. (Zeev) - Added support for user defined 'tick' callback functions. This helps emulate background processing. (Andrei) - Fixed problem with having $this as the XML parser object. (Andrei) - Internal opened_path variable now uses the Zend memory manager so that full paths of files won't leak on unclean shutdown (Andi) - Removed support of print $obj automatically calling the __string_value() method. Instead define yourself a method such as toString() and use print $obj->toString() (Andi, Zend Engine)
FreeBSD 4.1.1-RELEASE Available
By Justin Jenkins on September 27, 2000, 12:20 PM
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Jordan K. Hubbard, of the FreeBSD project announced this morning that FreeBSD 4.1.1-RELEASE is now available. Since the release of 4.1, the RSA has released their code into the public domain and a number of other security enhancements were made possible through the FreeBSD project's permission to export cryptographic code from the United States. These changes were all rolled into 4.1.1-RELEASE making it one of the most secure "out of the box" releases of FreeBSD ever completed. The FreeBSD crew also took the opportunity to include support for new features like IDE ATA100 support, drivers for additional Gigabit Ethernet cards and hardware watchpoints in gdb.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a network only point release and will not be made generally available for sale on CDROM, at least not from BSDi or anyone else we currently have knowledge of. The next official CD release will be FreeBSD 4.2-RELEASE, still scheduled for mid-November 2000.
Red Hat 7 Released
By Justin Jenkins on September 25, 2000, 2:23 PM
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All you Red Hat lovers can get a copy of the latest release from these North Carolinians, as version 7 was released to the public today and is available from RedHat's FTP. The new version features enhanced security, and an increase on the ease of use side of this fledgling OS that has taken the computer industry by storm.
With optimized software for higher-end Intel chips and increased 3D support, along with dozens of new enterprise-ready applications, RedHat hopes to extend its lead as the most powerful and widely used open source server environment in the world. Along with this release Red Hat is inducing the new "Red Hat Network," available now to all RedHat 7 users on a "free trial basis" (see related press release ) RedHat is pioneering a new way to distribute open source products, service, support and information on-line in real-time. See the press release here: "Red Hat Linux is the most popular and trusted open source environment in the world, and with the enhancements to Red Hat Linux 7 it becomes an even more compelling choice for enterprises to use as the foundation of their internet infrastructures," said Matthew Szulik, president and CEO of Red Hat, Inc. "Increased security, ease of use and manageability make Red Hat Linux 7 a full-featured solution for enterprise IT departments, workstation users and developers. It's appropriate that as the company responsible for so much of the internet infrastructure, Red Hat should also be the first to offer a complete array of on-line service and support through our innovative Red Hat Network. The Internet is the future of development, deployment and management services for software technology, and Red Hat is there today." New features:
Microsoft Releases HFCheck for IIS 5.0
By Justin Jenkins on September 5, 2000, 5:28 PM
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This link is not working on Microsoft’s server's they have been notifiedScott Culp of Microsoft sends word that Microsoft has just released a tool to help administrators "ensure that their servers are up to date on all IIS 5.0 security patches." The new tool, dubbed HFCheck is now available for download here. It works by comparing the IIS 5.0 patches currently installed on the target server with a database of available ones, and informing the administrator of patches that they may have missed or should install.
According to Microsoft:
PHP 4.0.2 Released
By Justin Jenkins on August 29, 2000, 6:11 PM
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Well for those of you following PHP; the opensource, free, alternative to ASP and other such technologies, version 4.0.2 was released today. It is described as mostly a bug and feature fix, and a lot of them at that. It is recommended that you upgrade, but it is not vital that you do so. Read on to see a full list of fixes and some new functionality, or download it here.
Here is a full list of changes: 29 Aug 2000, Version 4.0.2 - PHP 3 regression testing framework re-born (Stig) - Added php_uname() function (Stig) - Made a minor change to allow building with OpenLDAP 2.0 (Stig Venaas) - Fixed a bug in preg_replace() that would truncate subject string if the first argument was en empty array. (Andrei) - Added ob_get_length function (Stig) - Fixed a bug that did not respect limit parameter in preg_replace() when using /e modifier. (Andrei) - Added ability for each xml_set_*_handler() function to take the array($obj, 'method') syntax for the handler argument as well as the normal function name. (Andrei) - Updated array_walk() to be able to accept array($obj, 'method') syntax for the walk function. (Andrei) - Fixed segfault with fgets(), fgetcsv(), fgetss(), and fread() when called with negative length argument. (Torben) - Fix by-reference parameters passing for xml_ functions and for scanf functions (Stas) - Added experimental Oracle LDAP SDK support. 8.1.6 or later needed. Configure with something like --with-ldap=/usr/local/oracle/product/8.1.6 (Stig Venaas) - Fixed memory leaks in eval(); A script that used eval() extensively, could end up consuming very large amounts of memory during execution (Zeev, Zend Engine) - Fixed memory_limit feature, which did not work properly in previous versions (Zeev, Zend Engine) - Fixed stdout support with the swf extension. (Sterling) - Fixed byte order for ip2long and long2ip (Stas) - Fixed dbase_add_record. (Sterling) - Added support for libmcrypt 2.4.4 (Derick) - Added strncasecmp function (Andi, Zend Engine) - Fixed FTP module to accept multiline server replies (Jani) - Fixed switch which only has a single default rule. (Andi, Zend Engine) - Fixed problem with nested foreach()'s. (Andi, Zend Engine) - The CCVS module is now stable and compiling. It compiles as a CGI and into Apache cleanly without warnings. (Brendan W. McAdams) - Fixed mSQL_close(). (nick@loman.net) - Made return() in a require()'d file work like return() in an include()'d file (Andi & Zeev, Zend Engine) - Changed require_once() to work using the same table as include_once() (Andi & Zeev, Zend Engine) - Fixed PostgreSQL module to work when the link handle is omitted (Zeev) - Fixed the Sybase modules to work properly with PHP 4.0 (Zeev) - Fixed CLOB handling in OCI8 driver when using variable-width character sets. (Thies) - Added 4th optional parameter to sybase_[p]connect to specify the charset for the connection (alf@alpha.ulatina.ac.cr) - Fixed support for current thttpd releases. (Sascha) - Added support for kerberized IMAP library using --with-kerberos (Rasmus, Sascha) - Virtualize realpath, chmod, chown and utime (Stas) - Support content-encoding headers in file upload MIME parts (Ragnar Kjørstad) - Fixed warning when shutting down OCINLogon() connections. (Thies) - Fixed n in session variables bug on Win32 (Stas) - OCIError() would sometimes not report failed connections. (Thies) - Fixed HEAD request bug on an Apache ErrorDocument redirect and preserve the status code across the redirect as well. (Rasmus) - Added Olympus-specific tags to read_exif_data() (Rasmus) - Fixed bug in imap_fetchheader() where using FT_PREFETCHTEXT didn't return the body. Bug #4447. (Jani) - Fixed exec() returning "" when output is empty - Added XML_Parser class in PEAR (Stig) - Added "make test" target in pear/ and added some regression tests (Stig) - Fixed bug in strip_tags function as per bug #5857 (Rasmus) - Fixed reading of IPTC via GetImageInfo() for certain JPEG files. (Thies) - Improved the output-buffering functions to be re-entrant (Zeev) - Made ldap_add(), ldap_modify(), ldap_mod_add(), ldap_mod_replace() binary-safe. Original patch: Terrence Miao (Jani) - CGI aka. command line version has now an option '-l' for syntax check without execution (Hartmut) - Fixed bug in ldap_get_values_len() which makes it NULL-safe. (Jani) - Bug-report and fix submitted by Michel Alexeline - Make ext_skel create a Makefile.in set up to handle shared extension support automatically (Rasmus) - Fixed php_realpath not to die on non-existing files (needed for touch()) (Stas and china@thewrittenword.com) - Fixed get_browser() function (Stas) - Fixed symbol clash which caused a DSO problem on OpenBSD (Rob Black and anil@recoil.org) - Added new function: ldap_compare(). (Jani) - Fixed a bug in ldap_get_entries() and ldap_get_attributes(). (Jani) - Ported DB to new error reporting scheme in PEAR. (Stig) - Added sybase and ibase DB backends in PEAR. (Sterling) - New PEAR package Payment_Verisign for use with the Payflow Pro (pfpro) extension. (David Croft) - Added CURL support. (Sterling) - Catch users trying to set "compatibility" parameter in PDF, which is not supported from user-land. (Joey) - Fixed dbase_add_record. (Sterling) - Added new function wordwrap() to wordwrap long strings from Chris Russel (David Croft) - Added four additional arguments: attrsonly, sizelimit, timelimit, deref which were missing in ldap_search(), ldap_list() and ldap_read() functions (Jani) - Fixed a bug in ldap_search/list/read() which prevented returning the partial results when 'Sizelimit exceeded' error occurred. (Jani Taskinen) - Fixed preg_replace() to automatically escape quotes in matched strings when using /e modifier. (Andrei) - Itanium patch (Steve Robb) - Set default include_path so PEAR files can be reached (Stig) - Added "pear" executable, requires CGI version installed (Stig) - Added extension ii for Ingres II native support. See README in ext/ingres_ii directory. (David H) - Added Win32 project for the Interbase module (Zeev) - Added ability to perform calls to the parent class without explicitly specifying its name, using parent::func_name(...) (Zeev, Zend Engine) - You can now call Ora_Error() without prameters to get the reason for a failed connection attempt. (Kirill Maximov) - New extension "pfpro" for interface with Verisign Payflow Pro (David Croft) - Added IMG_GIF, IMG_JPG, IMG_JPEG, IMG_PNG and IMG_WBMP constants for imagetypes() function (Rasmus) - Added ImageTypes() function which returns a bitfield with the supported image formats. 1=gif, 2=jpeg, 4=png and 8=wbmp (Rasmus) - Make it possible to specify an empty string as a thousands-seperator in number_format() (Rasmus) - Shared module support for LDAP extension (Troels Arvin) - Fixed a bug with imap_mail where apache would segfault if the rpath parameter was specified. - Use dashes and short day name in cookies since some browsers seem picky about this (Rasmus) - Added pspell module. (Vlad) - Added 3 additional arguments to the user-defined error handler - the file name and line number in which the error occured, and the context (local variables) of the code in which the error occured (Zeev, Zend Engine) - Improved the error handling code to handle an error in a user-defined error handling function (Zeev, Zend Engine) - Fixed leak when using string offsets in the array() construct. (Andi, Zend Engine) - Fixed corruption problem when changing deeply nested values in objects. (Andi & Zeev, Zend Engine) - Improved array_multisort() to be able to specify sort type as well sort order. Incidentally, it can be used to sort multi-dimensional arrays as well. (Andrei) - Fixed a possible data corruption in case of a huge amount of aborted requests (Zeev) - Apache module would sometimes close a wrong file-descriptor. (Sascha) - Fixed use of alternative storage handlers in the session module. (Sascha) - Updated str_pad() to be able to pad on left/right/both sides. (Andrei) - Fixed crash in gzopen(). (Thies) - Multiple character set support in gdttf.c (Rob Goodwin) - When using HTTP auth from PHP, fill in the %u custom log field so the authenticated used id will get logged in the Apache access_log (Rasmus) - Support for pdflib 3.01. (Uwe) - FDF Data is handled properly and can be accessed by reading HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA. (Uwe) - Added new 'O' format modifier that will output the GMT offset as "[+-]HHMM" (eg: Pacific time is -0700). This is useful for things such as Date: mail headers. (Mike W) - Fixed crash on OCI?Logon() failure. (Thies) - Make the special Header("http/...") response be case insensitive like 3.0 (Rasmus) - Allow cybercash to compile as a DL module. (Sterling) - Fixed the dbase_create function. (Sterling) - Fixed a problem under some versions of Windows that could cause PHP to hang on startup if errors occured, e.g. in the php.ini file (Zeev) - Fixed opendir() again. It should actually work well continuously now (Zeev) - Added three additional arguments to be sent to a user-defined error handler - the filename and line number in which the error occured, and the context (the local variables) of the error (Zeev, Zend Engine) - Improved the error handling code to handle an error in a user-defined error handling function (Zeev, Zend Engine) - Added an optional parameter to preg_replace() that can be used to specify how many replacements to make. (Andrei)
Napster + AIM = MP3s?
By Justin Jenkins on August 10, 2000, 10:22 AM
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Well yet another Napster-like program has sprouted up, this time merging Aim with Napster to get AIMster. The recently launched AIMster allows for swapping of files only with your "buddies," and uses GNUtella's technology to do the actual swapping. AIMster uses AOL's instant messaging service to get the IP address and the files available from your other buddies computer's. This allows for searching ability and the confidence that only people on your list know what you have.
As AIMster uses GNUtella's technology it does not currently support "tunneling" of firewalls, though developers promise a tunneling version to be released by the end of the month. You can download AIMster here.
Judge Orders Hearing on FBI's Carnivore
By Justin Jenkins on August 2, 2000, 4:43 PM
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A Federal judge today ordered an emergency hearing set for tomorrow, on the EPIC (The Electronic Privacy Information Center) request for the immediate release of information on the so-called "Carnivore" e-mail surveillance tool, recently introduced by the FBI.
The EPIC accused the FBI and the JoD of disregarding the law by failing to act on a request for quick processing of a Freedom of Information Act inquiry about the new FBI system.
New AIM, With AIM Phone
By Justin Jenkins on July 25, 2000, 4:35 PM
17 Comments
AOL has released a new version of AIM. Marked as "AOL Instant Messenger v.4.1.2057" it features the new AIM Phone, which uses Net2Phone technology recently acquired by AOL. You can see a full description of what’s new here, download it here.