Repost:Booking.com reservation data used to scam customers

This is a very well documented article describing a scam that has been going on for years. This is worth your time if you use this service. Read more...

A day after watching the Super Bowl ads I noticed Booking.com paid for a Super Bowl Ad so this all of a sudden becomes a little more important to consider.

Using Microsoft Edge Browser instead of other options may save you battery life

Microsoft has been running some experiments testing battery life when using different browsers and Edge is coming up on top, of course. The primary reason was shown by measuring the battery draw when using each browser and the following results were reported by measuring the power draw of the Wi-Fi, CPU, and GPU during a test workload that cycled through some common sites including Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Amazon. This task drew:

• 2.1W in Edge
• 2.8W in Chrome
• 3.1W in Opera
• 3.2W in Firefox.

An article in ArsTechnica goes on to discuss how the new release of Windows 10 that is going to be available this month is making even more inroads into battery consumption when browsing the web and using the Edge browser. It will be interesting to see if this all holds up. I may have to jump back to using Edge more often when working on battery power.

Next Month MS will be pushing silent updates to your IE

Microsoft is auguring that taking the responsibility out of the hands of users will keep the Web safer. This is not a new procedure for browser companies, but is an acknowledgement that Google’s model is proper methodology.

"It's the future ... for all software," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security. "At this point, at least in the consumer space, people are expecting software to be up to date, and for it to do it itself."

Beginning in January it will roll out automatic upgrades of IE to the newest version suitable for a user's version of Windows. Windows XP users still on IE6 or IE7, for example, will be updated to IE8; Windows Vista or Windows 7 users running IE7 or IE8 will be pushed to IE9.

Previously, Microsoft has asked for user permission before upgrading IE from one version to the next, even if Windows' automatic updates are enabled.

The company will debut the new practice in Australia and Brazil next month, then expand the program gradually to other markets. Microsoft has not set a timetable for U.S. users.

While Chrome is the only browser that currently upgrades to the next version without asking users for permission, Mozilla is working on doing the same with Firefox. Mozilla has pushed back its schedule to release its auto update feature in Firefox 12, which is scheduled for April, 2012.

Microsoft will allow Users to retain control over when they want to update to new versions. So don’t worry about that. Enterprises using WSUS (Windows Server Update Service), or other patch management systems will not be affected. Microsoft is basically saying that if you set group policies through WSUS [to block automatic upgrades] that they are not going to override that.

Companies and individuals can also deploy the blocking toolkits that Microsoft had previously crafted for both IE8 and IE9 to stymie any auto-updating. Those kits can be downloaded from Microsoft's website. In future editions of IE -- meaning IE10 and beyond -- Microsoft will include an opt-out setting that users can select to disable automatic upgrades. While Chrome does not have such a setting, Firefox will when it eventually launches silent updates.

This seems to be a good balance between Microsoft’s desire to get consumers on the newest IE and retain its traditional conservatism where enterprises are concerned.

IE security updates, which are delivered every other month through Windows updates, will not be affected, as they are already silently downloaded and applied if users opt in to automatic updates.

Overall I view this turn of events as positive. Most of the work we do with systems these days are still cleaning systems of Malware, usually caught from visiting websites. So forcing an update to your browser only makes sense in the ongoing battle against the Malware creators. I applaud Microsoft for finally taking this approach.

Bing ads lead to more malware; new Mac Trojan in the wild | ZDNet

No longer are you only subject to malware from email attacks. For quite a long time now perpetuators of malware have been using many different Social Engineering techniques to infect your computer. The latest method involves redirecting search pages like mentioned in this Ed Bott article though ads on the search page. Be aware of what you are choosing from these web pages and if you are presented with popups wanting to install software to be able to run on your system, be very wary. Read this article to see just how unscrupulous these guys are getting.

Bing ads lead to more malware; new Mac Trojan in the wild | ZDNet

Social engineering in action: how web ads can lead to malware | ZDNet

This is definitely worth a the time to read. Ed Bott is one of the writers that I consistently read his columns. In this article he discusses how social engineering tricks is the new method of choice for Malware Producers.

Summary

One of the great myths of security is that if you’re infected with malware it’s your own fault, because you were visiting dangerous web sites. But these days, even a completely innocent link can lead to unwanted, potentially malicious software. Here’s what to watch out for. You need to watch very closely what you click on and what you accept to load. We are all a susceptible to this kind of attack.

Social engineering in action: how web ads can lead to malware | ZDNet

So what is Microsoft’s Office 365?

Microsoft's Office 365, the next piece of a broader play by Microsoft to bring its suite of Office server tools and collaboration work flows onto the cloud, is expected to launch sometime next year.

The company is already in the stages of testing it with small businesses and has a list of some 60,000 organizations, which are waiting to get access. In the meantime, Microsoft is continuing to fine-tune the product and expand its testing group--both in scale and the size of the companies that are being allowed in.

CNET reports: CNET was lucky enough to get early access to Office 365, which has been designed to work on a number of Web browsers, including Firefox and Safari--though not yet Chrome, which will work when the product is finalized. Office 365 is also cross-platform, so it works with both Macs and PCs. The good news is that in our brief testing, everything worked as advertised. The bad news is that you can't get it right now, and it's still a long ways off from something that lets you every feature out of the Office ecosystem without installing software.

So what is Office 365? This is a service that takes several server based applications and hosts them for you on the internet. These applications include hosted versions of Exchange (Outlook), SharePoint and Lync (replacement for Microsoft’s Communication Server) without having to host these services on your own network and never having to worry about maintenance updates. The service is going to run between $2 and $27 per user per month depending on your company size and which services your subscribe to.

Office 365 is available on a limited testing basis only and has a waiting list of over 40,000 but Microsoft is adding new subscribers daily as they test their server loads and functions. According to CNET they had absolutely no problem with their initial use of the product and they felt the system response was very good.

There is still a heavy reliance on local Office Applications and part of your subscription can include Microsoft Office for your local machine. Otherwise you have to rely on the consumer site for Office Web Apps for accessing Word, Excel and PowerPoint. If you are using Office on your local computer then one of your options with this subscription will be to save your documents to the Team Site (SharePoint) so you can share your files with others or with yourself from other locations.

You no longer need to have Outlook on your local machine in that the interface to the hosted Exchange Server is the new version of Outlook OWA that looks just like the packaged version. It has stronger links back to the Team Site (SharePoint) so that you can open documents into a pop-up browser window right from Outlook. This is quite useful in cases where your local computer doesn’t have Office installed on it. Outlook takes full advantage of keyboard shortcuts which helps you to quickly maneuver through your email.

Lync has some interesting connection to some of Windows Phone 7 and iPhone connections. This is something that I am going to look forward in testing myself to see if it is really useful or not. It provides other features like instant messaging, audio and video conferencing and voice call service. This version is based out of a web browser so it doesn’t have all of the capabilities of the full blown product but I can’t comment on that as of yet since I haven’t used it.

It is nice to have SharePoint on the system so that you can manage its capabilities on a team basis. Between simple list management, communication and file storage this is a great product to enhance how you do things and control workflow in your office.

All in all I would suggest keeping an eye on how this product progresses and when it becomes readily available might be a great addition to your company’s needs. It certainly will be something to look at to see if the pricing can fit within a budget that you can afford for the extra services that you can take advantage of.

Instapaper Updates Its Product to include new Sharing Options

Instapaper is one of my key applications that I use to capture articles for websites and RSS feeds for later reading and archival library storage. I am quietly putting together a wonderful library of photographic and photo editing application articles and notes that I am acquiring daily. I don’t know how I would do this without the use of this wonderful program. The great thing about it is the acceptance that it has received in the community and the other support programs that use its API to grab info on the fly for me.

The New released update provides several User Interface improvements and adds new sharing options as well. This new version adds preview text to the list view on the iPhone and iPod Touch similar to the iPad capabilities. If you are not using this application on your mobile devices and your PC you are missing a great tool to add to your arsenal to crate your own personal research library.

Google Docs editing finally comes to iPhone, iPad and Android mobile devices via Google Mobile

If you haven’t downloaded or updated your Google App you may want to do so now if you are a Google Docs user. While I am not, this appears to be a pretty handy addition to your office toolbox of applications that you can use to access documents created and/or stored on your Google Docs site.You can now make changes to your Google Docs from any IOS 3.x or later device as well as from Android devices running Froyo (2.2).

Seems to work well except I had a problem with using the desktop version for Google Docs on an iPad. It errors out. This may be due to the fact that the website is trying to download to a local add in of the Google Docs application. Since this doesn’t exist on Safari on the iPad it can’t do it. I also tried this using the Atomic Browser on the iPad without any success. However, it does work on my iPhone. Maybe the new update of upcoming IOS 4.2 for the iPad will fix this problem. Without the desktop function I don’t really see much use for this application on the iPad and using it on the small screen of my iPhone is not good either but will work in a pinch if I need it to.

For now I will continue to us DocsToGo for my formatted text and for the quick and dirty, I will use Evernote and FastEver XL to work with text on my iPad.

Hulu Plus is now out of preview with new $7.99 subscription cost!

I am an active user of the free Hulu product on my computer at home, but I really wanted the offer of anytime/anywhere access that Hulu Plus promised on my iPhone and iPad devices. Have I been using this service? Yes, but I am not as happy with the selection as compared with what is available on my computer.You would think that with word PLUS in its name, there would be more, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The list seems to be getting better but not fast enough to suit me. Is it something that will cause me leave the service? Not yet. But it is nice that the price has dropped to $7.99 and that we should be seeing some credits back for us earlier adopters.

Here is a quick breakdown from Hulu that shows the differences between the two services:

Whether the $2 per month savings will be enough to spark a new wave of subscribers is hard to say—the service is still pricey for a somewhat limited selection of popular shows. Then again, Hulu Plus does offer complete seasons for current shows (something free users won't get), but unless you're the type to blow through whole seasons of recent shows, it may be a better use of your money to subscribe to Netflix instead.

Listingly Web App that allows you to share Lists

While I was getting ready to go out and do our weekly grocery shopping this morning I started transferring my written paper shopping list on my TODO list on my iPhone I started talking to my lovely wife about what I was doing.

Now, if anyone knows Kathy she is very much a list person. She loves lists. and when she commented on whether she had a Todo or list program on her iPhone it got me to thinking that it would be nice to have an application that we could share the information back and forth on our iPhones that we would also have access from a web browser as well. This is my big thing, I want to have all of my data where and when I can get at it from most any device I sit down with or touch.

So I sat down and began the search for the golden chalice. listingly is what I finally decided on. I failed to find anything that was a web based app and had a standard iPhone app as well but I was pleasantly surprised how well listingly works through Safari.

Once you have signed yourself up you will want to edit or add your own lists to your account. This has to be done using your computer but once you have your list setup and shared you can easily add items, subtract items and manage your list from either the iPhone or your computer screen. You will use your computer for setting up your lists primarily, and your iPhone for working with the lists.

Your account comes predefined with three lists, grocery, wish list and to do list. It uses your first name to define the owner of the list so the wish list is named in my case, Bobs Wishlist. This is something that you will want to make sure that you put on your list in case you share the list with someone, it will make it easier for them to know where the list originated. When creating a list you will choose a name, pick one of four types of lists:

• Grocery (Smart List) – This type of list allows the site to remember items that can be added back into the list over and over again as your need for them recurs. It will also help you build your list by auto suggesting items based on what you are typing. You can also categorize by adding a comma and entering a term for your categorization. For my grocery list I used the aisle names to group the grocery items together to make it easier to get all the items from the same area.
• Free Style List – use this list item for just general lists. You can still categorize the list the same way as listed above. And as in all the lists you are able to add a note to your list item to give yourself more info about the listed item.
• Wish List
• To Do List – has an extra field for you to add a due date for each item.

To add button on your iPhone to go directly to your lists, press the plus symbol at the bottom of the screen (image #1), then press the button for Add to Home Screen (image #2), name your new icon (image #3) and position it on your iPhone where you would like it to show up (image #4).

This is a shareware product and if you find that you are using it and want to help with the continued programming and possibly new features, you should consider helping the cause by donating some money to the author.

Good luck with this, and have fun!

Posterous – Blogging through email and text messages…

If you were looking for in these simple and quick method of creating posts on the fly, Posterous could be a great program for you to use.  You have the ability to connect multiple accounts to this site so that your posts or automatically shared with other online sources.  In this test, I have linked twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and my BobsTechTalk Blog. Will these sites get updated automatically as on a post new entries into the Posterous blog site.  Now here is the interesting part.  You are able to easily add entries by either emailing your message to the site, Texting to this site, or making a web entry to the site itself.

The site is very simplistic, so don't expect a lot of extra capabilities.  I have not tried live writer as of yet to see whether it could post directly to this site, so that will be something that I will try as time permits.  If you send a video or attach photos to your e-mail when sending it to the site, it will be posted with the pictures, and will update the picture galleries and the sites that can accept pictures from you.  You have the ability to add connections too many different sites and I am sure they will be continuing to add more as time goes on.  So if you want a quick way to post a single entry two multiple sites in one fell swoop, this might be one quick and easy method of doing so.

But me know what you think of this program.  I'd be interested in how many if you are using it or if you find it useful.

Pivot – A New Way of Viewing Web Content

Gary Flake discusses a new way of looking at data patterns gleaned from Web Content. The video shows a “new” innovative way of interacting with information. This appears to be the next step in the way we can interact with information, deciphering it’s content and coming up with new ideas based on the patterns and data connectivity that you might be able to find. Take it for what it is worth, if I had this available to me now, I would definitely be using it for many of my projects. A lot of the comments on this site discussed the problems in creating the data subsets that this type of program would need to use to produce the effects that you see in the video, and also the prior work done by others in the semantic web functions.

Other sources of information:

Blaise Aguera y Arcas leads a dazzling demo of Photosynth, software that could transform the way we look at digital images. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html

Three powerful talks from TED2007

This week we're posting three of the most-talked-about talks from TED2007 -- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, John Doerr and Blaise Aguera y Arcas' remarkable demo of Seadragon/Microsoft Photosynth.  http://blog.ted.com/2007/05/three_powerful.php

First impressions of my Flip HD Video Camera

Merry Christmas Everyone! It’s rainy and wet here today, Yuck!, but we still have a little snow to make it seem like Christmas. I want to start with the Flip camera.

I liked how easy the camera worked and the low light capabilities of the unit. One thing that I noticed though was how noisy 20 odd people can be when crowded into a small space. Because the camera is so light you don’t get tired holding it but you also don’t have the heft to help you steady it either. I tried putting together the pictures using the Flip Software but it seems cumbersome so I tried switching to Window’s Movie Maker. The sound track from the video seemed to shift some on that and I wasn’t real happy with that either. That bothers me because Movie maker is easy to use it would be nice if it would work for this purpose.

I need to give it another try but I miss my big machine. It got a little sick with of the stupidity of its primary operator. I had a Facebook message come through that pointed to a site that a virus/trojan attached and I went through the motions of loading the virus without thinking. Shouldn’t be operating a computer that early in the morning I guess. It really got zapped and the guys are still working on it. I hope we don’t have to reload the computer from scratch. This is not the time of year to be doing that.

My off loading the data to network drives will allow me to bring the system back up to speed rather quickly though if that is what we have to do. So if you run into an email that has you installing software onto your system, don’t do it. Delete, Delete DELETE! Even the best of us can get suckered.

First Take on new Webcast

Here’s our first try at the webcast. First problem we see is that the sound is a bit tinny. We need to setup and use a microphone and mixer I think to get this to get a bit more base.

Some exciting news about a new addition to CCI Web Page

We have been getting much closer to putting the final touches on our first “produced” web video which is going to become a weekly feature of our website. These videos will contain content from a varied subject matter but will all pertain to our Solutions Oriented focus. So, you will see videos on new products, news items, how to’s and interviews with individuals in our industry. We are really looking forward to this new venture and really hope to be able to grow it into a valued support tool for you our clients. Stay Tuned and I will bring you more news about this new feature from www.localsupport.com.

Here’s another video showing how quickly a site can go from being clean to infection and back to clean again.

This is not a newsworthy item as mentioned in the YouTube submission that this video stream came from. It is interesting how transient an infection can be on a website. AVG is showing how they can find cached versions of the pre/post/post clean sites and detect the path and style of the infection. For me this demonstrates how easily you can be infected if you don’t have the proper protection in place and if you are not aware of what can happen so easily when you are not careful of the sites that you visit. Again, Thank you Jude for sending these video streams to our attention.

Interesting Video Showing a Virus Scam used to hijack your system

AVG Research Lab presented this video on YouTube to show how easily a user can be scammed into buying a fake security program. Once your initially caught it is very hard to get you system clean again. Jude brought this to my attention and thought it might be of some interest.

Is Dim Dim ready for Prime Time?

We are always looking for great alternatives to software applications that either cost us less or provide more function and I had hoped that Dim Dim had gotten much faster but, it still appears not to have responsiveness of some of the other virtual meeting software that is on the market today.  When I loaded all the PowerPoint presentation it had to convert the format of the file before it was usable, which is not a problem, but the 10 second or more waiting time between slide changes was a bit more than tolerable. Voice connection between systems had a slight delay that was well within acceptable limits and has good quality and clarity.  No fault found there.  But screen changes were entirely too long.

For small individual groups I still think Citrix's GoToMeeting package is the product that we all compare function to.  I will keep working and searching and we will see what comes up and maybe someday we will have a good alternative that is more reasonably priced then GoToMeeting. Though, if you really use the package it is not that unreasonably priced.

Voice to Text Recognition on an iPhone

I have been searching for an application that will allow me to use my iPhone as a dictation device and will automatically convert my voice recordings to usable text. While reQall doesn't quite fill all my needs, I am finding that it is still a pretty interesting utility that can add a lot of extra support to a hectic lifestyle.

reQall allows you to set up categories and set times for your tasks. You can have folders for categories like Shopping, To-do and Notes. It has both a Web and Phone interface so you can make changes and update your lists to help make them work even better for you. But what I like the most is the ability to add your notes, dictation style, on the fly using your iPhone and the reQall application.

There is a free version that gives you a taste of what the program can do. And then…. the Pro version adds quite a few subtle capabilities that will make this program almost indispensible to you if you are one of those people that is continuously on the go. We need all the tools to make ourselves more efficient and to operate at our peak efficiencies. You might find this is just the program to give you that extra edge. These days, it is only small things that differentiate ourselves from our competition. Here is one way to give you the ability to shine in your customer’s eyes.

The Standard Version is free but for $2.99/month, $24.99/year you may want to consider the Pro version. Here is a brief list of features found in the Pro Version:

• Add items to Google Calendar and Outlook by voice.
• See what you need to remember right here and now via the Memory Jogger.
• Group items by creating Places that have an associated geo-location (with a GPS-enabled device. If you have the new iPhone 3GS this will do that for you).
• Group items by Place even without a GPS device. For example, "Errands" or "Online Tasks" can be Places.
• Create To-Dos, Notes and Shopping List items via email.
• Have your items for Work and Home organized automatically.
• Receive reminders via text message.

I have only been using this application for a short time but already I know that when the initial trial is up I am going to spring for the Pro Version.

New service from Comcast: Access your DVR remotely

You can now manage you DVR remotely using myDVR Manger. Once you have logged in and initialized the application, it will take 24 hours to synchronize to all the DVR units in your home.  This program allows you to schedule your DVR to record your favorite TV shows and movies from any where you have Internet access with computer.  If you have forgotten to schedule a program you can now access the DVR that you would like to program remotely from your work or other Internet connected computer.

The features include:

• Schedule your recordings online
• Review your scheduled recordings
• Modify a scheduled recording
• Modify a series recording

You will need your Comcast username (this is your email account) and password to be able to activate an access this account.  You will then be able to access and eventually any DVR that is in your home from a remote desktop.  You can even use this application on your home PC to make it a little easier to program your recording schedules.

I will let you know how well this works after I have used it for couple of weeks.  You're facing simple and straightforward and I feel this is a great addition to Comcast's capabilities.  Good going Comcast!