Is Safari taking Windows users for a ride?

This morning after I logged in, Apple’s Software Update program popped up and asked me if I wanted to install Safari.  “Safari? ” I wondered, “the only Apple software I’ve installed on this system is the QuickTime+ITunes bundle.  Why’s it asking me about Safari?”

But I’ve mean meaning to install Safari anyway to test browser compatibility, so I said, “Sure, why not?”

Well, apparently a lot of folks out there aren’t as easygoing about this as I am.

Mozilla CEO John Lilly says:

It’s wrong because it undermines the trust that we’re all trying to build with users. Because it means that an update isn’t just an update, but is maybe something more. Because it ultimately undermines the safety of users on the web by eroding that relationship. It’s a bad practice and should stop.

Of course he’s not biased.

I guess maybe most users don’t pay much attention to what they’re installing on their systems, and just click OK to anything that pops up and asks for their permission.  Maybe it’s becoming a knee-jerk reaction in response to Vista’s UAC.

My own opinion is that this isn’t such a big deal.  What I was choosing to install was quite clear to me, and I had the option of saying no without losing any other functionality or security.  And if you don’t know what Safari is, Google can take you there as its first result.

What do you think?  Is Apple pushing its products in too subtle a fashion here?

Oh, and as for that browser compatibility test… it looks like I may have some work to do.



Take the television but leave the Internets alone!

By Mark O’Neill

kjkjkkk_noose.jpgA new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that more Americans would prefer to give up the television than lose their internet connection by a margin of 45% to 43%.

It also found that losing their internet connection for a sustained period of time would make people think they had been transported back to the Dark Ages. This leads to the best quote of the article :

“I suspect for a lot of people, if you cut that cord, they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves,” said Bob Papper, a media professor at Hofstra University on Long Island, N.Y. “They’d be paralyzed without the internet. They might have to read.”

As well as being funny, it is also very startling.   It makes you realise how much the internet has penetrated our lives to the point that we’d be ‘paralyzed’ without it.    That losing the internet would force us to do something as basic as read a book.    That’s why I chose a man and a noose as the illustration for this post – because losing their internet connection and their computer would probably make a few die-hard net surfers choose the ultimate way out.    It’s sad but it’s probably true.

What about you? Being a geek, I’m sure the TV would be history if you had to choose but if the internet connection went down, how long is too long? How long before you started chewing the sofa or ripping the wallpaper in frustration?  How long before you considered picking up that book and starting to read?    How long before you declared Holy War on the internet provider?

Lenovo X300 versus MacBook Air Comparison

Yep folks, Lenovo has decided to try and compete against the MacBook Air with their new x300 ultra-light and ultra-thin laptop. Here is a quick comparison chart between the two ultra-portables:

Lenovo Thinkpad X300 Apple MacBook Air
Processor: Core 2 Duo
Weight: 2.9 to 3.1 pounds
Thickness: 0.92 in.
Screen: 13.3 LED
Resolution: 1440X900
Removable Battery
Connectivity: Ethernet, Wi-Fi
3 USB ports
DVD drive: YES
Price: $2700 to $3000 USD


 Processor: Core 2 Duo
Weight: 3 pounds
Thickness: 0.76 inches
Screen: 13.3 LED
Resolution: 1280X800
Non-Removable Battery
Connectivity: Wi-Fi Only
1 USB ports
DVD drive: NO
Price: $1800 to $3100 USD

Ok, the X300 may be a little thicker, but it has a lot more features, including 3 USB ports, an Ethernet port, and a DVD drive. I think this makes the X300 a much better option for people on the move when compared to the MacBook Air, even if it’s running XP. Business users looking for portability won’t even have to look twice before purchasing this one.



Service Review: Professional Drive Recovery Service

Drive Recovery Service Review

Losing a hard drive full of data is certainly a stressful affair. Not only will you likely go through the five clinical stages of grief, but then you’ll have to figure out exactly how you will continue on after this traumatic event. Can you actually recover any data from the drive? How bad is it? What steps do you take?

Say you don’t have a backup plan in place, as is the case with most people. What do you do when your world suddenly comes crashing down upon you (and I do mean this in the most literal sense)?

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The future of portable tech: Solid-state fans

The biggest reason behind mobile technology being limited in size and performance is the inability of manufacturers to cool hardware appropriately. Every portable device on the market is either horribly underpowered or larger than necessary. This is because most gadgets with acceptable specs need large fans and heat sinks to keep them from burning through your lap.

Nowadays, if a manufacturer wants to cool something down, they smack a fan on it and call it a day. Not only do these fans move minuscule amounts of air, they’re large, waste battery power, and have a limited life-span.

The new, tiny, solid-state fan from Thorrn Micro Technologies uses similar principals as those ionic air purifiers. Basically, the fan emits ions that create an electric field which then pushes air molecules. I was a little skeptical at first, however, the fan can reportedly move air at up to 2.7 meters per second, whereas regular mechanical fans in portable electronics only push about .7-1.7 meters per second.

Research and development of the SSD fan has already been completed and it is now being prepared for marketing to computer manufacturers; the people behind it are expecting to push these onto the market as early as next year. In other words, it may never happen.

Microchip-sized ‘fan’ has no moving parts

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Arthur C. Clarke: The day the future died

Arthur C. Clarke - Dec 16, 1917 - Mar 19, 2008By Lyle Bateman
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

“The golden age of science fiction” is a term used to describe a particularly fertile period in science fiction, when old conventions of “the space western” were challenged with new ideas, new themes, and new energy.

There are many names associated with that period—Heinlein Bradbury and Asimov, among others—but no name is more synonymous with that heady time in science fiction than Arthur C. Clarke. The death of Clarke, yesterday at his Sri Lanka home at the age of 90, almost closes that chapter of science-fiction history. With only Ray Bradbury left from the shiniest nuggets of the Golden Age, more than just writers are passing into history… the very ethic that created the world we live in today is slowing growing pale.

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Drift off to sleep with Ambient Skype

By Mark O’Neill

2330007353_7c599346ec_o.jpgWhen the cost of bandwidth is virtually next to nothing these days, couples who find themselves apart are using Skype to recreate that “at home” feeling. It even has a name – Ambient Skype.

Basically you leave the app constantly running on your computer as background noise. Since Skype-to-Skype calls are free, it doesn’t cost you a dime (except maybe electricity to keep the computer up). You don’t have to talk to your partner all the time (who talks to one another non-stop 24/7 anyway?). Skype just stays running and if the webcam is on, you can drop off to sleep together, listening to one another breathing, snoring, talking in their sleep, farting… just like a real “together” couple!

As I said, this would be good if couples found themselves apart due to business trips but it would also be good for long distance relationships or families who are scattered across the globe for one reason or another. As well as dropping off to sleep together, you can also leave Skype on to listen to your kids screaming their heads off in the background or generally listen to comforting sounds of home. Anything to avoid those pangs of homesickness.

Photo courtesy of Roo Reynolds – re-published under a Creative Commons License.

Followup: Hannaford Used Rapid7 for Security

Hannaford Brothers Supermarkets didn’t know much about cybersecurity, but then again, most companies don’t.   Companies that don’t use a full-time infosec staff rely on security providers to assess their network and provide solutions that fit their size and need, and hopefully, provides protection for them at an acceptable level of risk.  Then those companies carry on with what they do best, which is running a business.  In Hannaford’s case, that business is selling groceries at a good price.

Hannaford had turned to a company called Rapid7 to secure their network, their webservers, and most importantly, protect their credit card processing information from hackers.  When news of the massive data breach reached the home offices of Rapid7, the security company immediately assembled a team of crisis managers to tackle the issue.

No, they didn’t deploy a forensics team to Hannaford to help contain the data breach.  Instead, Rapid7 scrubbed all mentions of Hannaford from their client list. Rapid7 obviously didn’t want to be associated with one of the largest dataloss incidents in history, and they certainly didn’t want to sully the name of their flagship appliance, the “neXpose” which is a vulnerability scanning device.

This information is from Attrition.Org, an online security community that has been around since the predawn of the dot-com boom.  They have an outstanding article, with screenshots here, where they are much less kind to Rapid7 in light of their cowardly actions.

These shenanigans provide a teaching opportunity.

  • First and most obvious, you can’t try to coverup associations with your customers, especially if you so proudly flaunted your relationship on your corporate website.
  • Second if you are a security company and you maintain a comprehensive list of all of your customers on a public website, you expose them to hack attacks should a vulnerability ever arise in your own product.  That customer list turns into a hacker’s menu.
  • Third, if you are a private company and are forced to be included on a security company’s client list as a condition of purchasing their product, go with another vendor.
  • Finally, companies should choose a vendor that is there to help you in the worst case scenario.  Not a company that will scrub all memory of you from their website when the chips are down.