G desktop works fine with FF as default browser, it just doesn't index the history of FF or Tbird. Just a little problem - just a little nuisance. I got rid of it for those reasons, since I don't need to search for anything else.
Maybe I won't get terrible karma for this... And look at the date before you say redundant!
Spam levels are about to skyrocket, according to experts who warned this week that spammers have developed a new way of delivering their wares.
According to the SpamHaus Project--a U.K.-based antispam compiler of blacklists that block 8 billion messages a day--a new piece of malicious software has been created that takes over a PC. This "zombie" computer is then used to send spam via the mail server of that PC's Internet service provider. This means the junk mail appears to come from the ISP, making it very hard for an antispam blacklist to block it.
Previously, zombie PCs have been used as mail servers themselves, sending spam e-mails directly to recipients.
"The Trojan is able to order proxies to send spam upstream to the ISP," said Steve Linford, director of SpamHaus.
Linford believes that this Trojan horse was created by the same people who write spamming software.
ISPs in the United States may have already been hit. "We've seen a surge in spam coming from major ISPs. Now all of the ISPs are having large amounts of spam going out from their mail servers," Linford said.
This will cause serious problems for the e-mail infrastructure, as it is impractical to block mail with domain names from large ISPs. Linford predicts that ISPs will see a growth in the volume of bulk mail they send and receive over the next two months, with spam levels rising from 75 percent of all e-mail to around 95 percent within a year.
"The e-mail infrastructure is beginning to fail," Linford warned. "You'll see huge delays in e-mail and servers collapsing. It's the beginning of the e-mail meltdown."
Linford said that ISPs need to act fast to take control of the problem. "They've got to throttle the number of e-mails coming from ADSL accounts. They are going to have to act quickly to clean incoming viruses. ISPs have so much spam--they are too understaffed to call people up and tell them they have Trojans on their machines. And no one would know what you're talking about."
Antispam company MessageLabs confirmed Linford's findings.
"This ups the ante in the need for filters," said Mark Sunner, chief technology officer for MessageLabs. "It makes it more difficult for people who compile blacklists, which is why spammers are doing this. It will put more pressure on ISPs to take greater interest in the traffic they carry and filter at source."
The Information Commissioner's Office, the United Kingdom's point-of-call to report spam, said it had received no complaints of bulk spam from ISPs.
Some U.S.-based ISPs contacted by News.com said an e-mail meltdown has yet to arrive. But technicians at some of the largest Internet providers have acknowledged the issue and similar exploits in the past. Many, but not all, U.S. ISPs have blocked open relay ports, such as port 25, to shut out spammers from disseminating messages from home-operated servers. The block has helped some broadband ISPs limit the output of zombie spam, and some have noticed the new form of malware taking shape.
Time Warner Cable, the nation's second largest cable company, said it had become aware of this spam "vector," as it calls it, and has mechanisms to control it, according to company spokesman Keith Cocozza. He noted that the company's ISP, called Road Runner, has outgoing e-mail limits in place, but declined to elaborate on how the company monitors and responds to this malware issue.
Earthlink, which runs a dial-up and broadband service, said it noticed a gradual increase in spam volume coming from its legitimate mail servers since the beginning of 2004. The company claims it has implemented safeguards, such as authenticated SMTP servers and re-routing of legitimate e-mail, to cut down the flow.
"Overall we've been able to greatly reduce the amount of spam from our network by routing activities and applying chokepoints," said Trip Cox, Earthlink's chief technology officer. Cox added that the measure have reduced spam from 30 percent of the ISP's total e-mail volume to 2 percent.
Intuiut really has no right to cause old versions to crash, but they do have the right to cease updates and support.
When the consumer buys Quicken, they own the program now. Then they may CHOOSE to get the updates. Intuit should not send an 'update' that crashes or uninstalls Quicken. But they can stop updating, since that is a service, and they cans stop supporting it, but they can't ta
I am a avid gardener, and a little less didicated to geekhood, so this is a great question!
Lettuce is nice, especially as a small leaf salad. Or you could have just a few in their own pots, and eat the outer leafs every once in a while. Okra is geeky, though a little tall, you can always cut it down when it gets too tall. That would need pollination. For something viney, sweetpotatoes work well, though not easy to get to produce anything. Radishes are a little out of taste, nor are they pretty aboveground. Cucumbers need pollination too, and are not too easy.
In the way of flowers, a lemon tree would be right on. Also try a butterfly bush. It would need frequent pruning to keep it small, but it could be done for a year or two.
What not to do: Peppers are tough except for hot ones, so if you like them, go to it. Tomatos are miserable. Wheatgrass is all right, but not very longlived.
He said that he wanted something legal, not Cannabis. Are morning glory seeds illegal, and why? Stick to the subject!
The 3D flat images are nice, but I want to spin it, go into it,etc. as far as I want, not a preset unchangable series of flats.
Incedentally, there are "Warning: mysql_connect(): Too many connections in/Users/silver/Sites/visualize/includes/database.my sql.inc on line 31
Too many connections" to the database about that tool. Suppose we've \.ted it!
Centrino is fine and dandy, but I still want a little bit more speed than that. I want a Pentium M, but I also want to know how it really is vs that desktop. I would really like to have the fastest thing for a new laptop, as judged by experienced people. So Intel, come on and test all your chips against that 'fast' desktop!
Spammed man sued by alleged spammer wants cash January 18 2005 by Jo Best Legal aid the PayPal way
A man who claims he has been receiving unsolicited emails from a US company for two years is now being sued by them, for branding them spammers and reporting their actions to ISPs.
Jay Stuler is now on the receiving end of a lawsuit from New Hampshire firm Atriks, which alleges Stuler caused financial harm to the firm and caused it to lose contracts. The suit also states that Stuler had been making defamatory statements, including calling CEO Brian Haberstroh a "criminal" and the company "a notorious spam gang", which the suit denies.
Stuler, however, says on his website the case is a "frivolous lawsuit designed to harass and intimidate" and claims the reason he's been sued by Atriks is because, after complaining to his ISP about the alleged spam, the company saw its accounts closed down by the service providers.
"They apparently are angry that spamming has become difficult for them and blame me," he said. "If I can be sued simply for complaining about spammers, then anyone can be."
In the court filing, Atriks states that: "The activities of Atriks, in providing internet hosting, and DMC, [a company registered at the same address as Atriks] in sending commercial email, meet the requirements of the CAN-spam Act."
Anti-spam foundation SpamHaus has listed Atriks on its register of known spam operations (ROKSO), which states the company has violated the act by using misleading subject lines.
SpamHaus also says it has had complaints that software is being installed by Atriks on users' computers without their permission - which is a felony.
"Spamhaus has received numerous reports of the VirtualMDA software discovered running on people's computers without their permission, they have no idea what it's doing or how it got installed there, and they are certainly not getting paid for the use of their computer [as Atriks/Sendmail claims to do]," the ROKSO says.
Stuler is appealing for help from the public in fighting the suit and has set up a PayPal account to pay for his legal fees and is asking for donations.
"If and when my legal bills are paid in full, any donations received will be passed on to others being harassed by frivolous lawsuits from spammers," he adds.
Intel's latest portable computing platform is here. We lift the lid on the improved CPU, chipset and wireless components, and outline the benefits that mobile professionals are likely to experience.
After many months of delay, Intel's new 'Sonoma' portable processor and chipset combo is ready for inspection. The Centrino platform has been one of the company's notable successes over an otherwise bumpy period, as it has included most functions a notebook computer needs while balancing high performance against battery life. This recipe is followed faithfully in this latest iteration.
Pentium M with 533MHz FSB
Centre stage is taken by a buffed-up version of the processor previously known as Dothan, now in its Pentium M business suit, fabricated in a 90nm architecture and topped off with 2MB of Level 2 cache. Most of the new Pentium Ms have a 533MHz frontside bus (FSB), giving what Intel claims is a 33 percent increase in memory data transfer over the previous chip's 400MHz.
Most of the new Pentium M processors have a 533MHz frontside bus. The flagship Pentium M 770 chip runs at 2.13GHz.
The updated processor range clocks in at speeds of 2.13GHz (Pentium M 770), 2GHz (760), 1.86GHz (750), 1.73GHz (740) and 1.6GHz (730). There are also low voltage (1.5GHz, 758) and ultra low voltage variants (1.2GHz, 753) with 400MHz FSBs, aimed at manufacturers making very slim and light notebooks. Power requirements range from 5 watts for the 753 to 27 for the 770.
The only other addition to the Pentium M architecture is support for the Execute Disable bit, which with operating system support -- provided by Windows XP Service Pack 2, for example -- can prevent buffer overflow virus or trojan attack code from executing on the system stack.
Most of the differences in the updated Centrino platform live in the Alviso chipset, now officially named the Intel Mobile 915 Chipset Family. This includes support for up to 2GB of DDR2 DRAM, which uses a lower voltage than DDR1, has a smaller page size and extra power-down modes. Although the higher speed of DDR2 somewhat negates these low-power features, Intel says that with the 915, DDR2 memory at 533MHz will peak at 60 percent faster than 400MHz DDR RAM, and can save an average of 120mW per stick.The new memory is physically smaller, too.
The new Mobile 915 'Alviso' chipset supports up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM, Serial ATA and PCI Express, plus improved integrated graphics and audio.
The 915 chipset also includes a power-managed Serial ATA disk interface, and PCI Express, which is advertised at being up to twice as fast for I/O and four times as fast for graphics. Expansion cards for this will follow the new ExpressCard format, which is around half the size of the venerable PC Card standard, and which has a somewhat squashed orange rabbit as its logo. Most, if not all, notebooks with ExpressCard launched this year will also have a slot for older formats, and most, if not all, ExpressCard cards this year will duplicate functions already available with PC Card.
Integrated graphics on the 915GM -- the Graphics Media Accelerator 900 -- includes DirectX 9.0 hardware support for 3D games, as well as high-definition, wide aspect ratio and TV standard outputs. Intel claims that the integrated graphics has twice the raw speed of the previous Centrino chipset, the 855GME, and that with two 533MHz DDR2 memory modules the chip can reach a preliminary 3DMark03 performance rating of 1,140. This compares with figures in the 5,000 range for high-specification desktop gaming configurations and is unlikely to excite the hard core, but should be sufficient for games a couple of years old. Most business applications are expected to be unaffected.
Likewise, adoption of the Intel High Definition Audio standard means that the 915 chipset can support multiple independent audio streams -- such as streamed telephony at the same time as surround-sound DVD playback -- in ways that may have consumer applications but are currently underexploited i
Shan't!
Jan 6th 2005
From The Economist print edition
Computer chips for "open-spectrum" devices are a closed book
TELECOMMUNICATIONS used to be a closed game, from the copper and fibre that carried the messages, to the phones themselves. Now, openness reigns in the world of wires. Networks must interconnect with those of competitors, and users can plug in their own devices as they will. One result of this openness has been a lot of innovation.
Openness is coming to the wireless world, too. Cheap and powerful devices that use unlicensed and lightly regulated parts of the radio spectrum are proliferating. But there is a problem. Though the spectrum is open, the microprocessor chips that drive the devices which use it are not. The interface information--the technical data needed to write software that would allow those chips to be used in novel ways--is normally kept secret by manufacturers. The result could be a lot less innovation in the open wireless world than in the open wired one.
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Take, for example, the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN), in Illinois. This group is trying to create a so-called meshed Wi-Fi network. Wi-Fi is a wireless technology that allows broadband internet communication over a range of about 50 metres. That range could, however, be extended if the devices in an area were configured to act as "platforms" that both receive and transmit signals. Messages would then hop from one platform to another until they got to their destination. That would allow such things as neighbourhood mobile-phone companies and a plethora of radio and TV stations, and all for almost no cost. But to make such goodies work, CUWiN needs to tweak the underlying capabilities of Wi-Fi chips in special ways.
When its engineers requested the interface information from the firms that furnish the chips, however, they were often rebuffed. A few companies with low-end, older technology supplied it. But Broadcom and Atheros, the two producers of the sophisticated chips that CUWiN needs if its system is to sing properly, refused. Nor is CUWiN alone in its enforced ignorance. SeattleWireless and NYCwireless, among other groups, have similar ideas, but are similarly stymied. Christian Sandvig of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has been studying the brouhaha, believes regulators ought to enforce more openness.
Broadcom and Atheros say that making the interface information public would be illegal, because it could allow users to change the parameters of a chip in ways that violate the rules for using unlicensed spectrum (for example, by increasing its power or changing its operating frequency). That is a worry, but it depends on rather a conservative interpretation of the law. The current rules apply to so-called "software-defined radios" (where the ability to send and receive signals is modifiable on the chip), and do not apply directly to Wi-Fi. Also, by supplying the data, manufacturers would not be held liable if a user chose to tweak the chip in unlawful ways. And in any case, if the firms are really worried, they could release most of the interface, keeping back those features that are legally sensitive.
Nor is the interface information commercially sensitive. Engineers are not asking for the computer code that drives the interfaces, merely for the means to talk to them. And having the interface information in the public domain should eventually result in more chips being sold. So it is hard to see what the problem is beyond a dog-in-the-mangerish desire not to give anything away. Time to open it up, boys.
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Shan't!
Jan 6th 2005
From The Economist print edition
Computer chips for "open-spectrum" devices are a closed book
TELECOMMUNICATIONS used to be a closed game, from the copper and fibre that carried the messages, to the phones themselves. Now, openness reigns in the world of wires. Networks must interconnect with those of competitors, and users can plug in their own devices as they will. One result of this openness has been a lot of innovation.
Openness is coming to the wireless world, too. Cheap and powerful devices that use unlicensed and lightly regulated parts of the radio spectrum are proliferating. But there is a problem. Though the spectrum is open, the microprocessor chips that drive the devices which use it are not. The interface information--the technical data needed to write software that would allow those chips to be used in novel ways--is normally kept secret by manufacturers. The result could be a lot less innovation in the open wireless world than in the open wired one.
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Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network, SeattleWireless, NYCwireless, Broadcom, Atheros
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Take, for example, the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN), in Illinois. This group is trying to create a so-called meshed Wi-Fi network. Wi-Fi is a wireless technology that allows broadband internet communication over a range of about 50 metres. That range could, however, be extended if the devices in an area were configured to act as "platforms" that both receive and transmit signals. Messages would then hop from one platform to another until they got to their destination. That would allow such things as neighbourhood mobile-phone companies and a plethora of radio and TV stations, and all for almost no cost. But to make such goodies work, CUWiN needs to tweak the underlying capabilities of Wi-Fi chips in special ways.
When its engineers requested the interface information from the firms that furnish the chips, however, they were often rebuffed. A few companies with low-end, older technology supplied it. But Broadcom and Atheros, the two producers of the sophisticated chips that CUWiN needs if its system is to sing properly, refused. Nor is CUWiN alone in its enforced ignorance. SeattleWireless and NYCwireless, among other groups, have similar ideas, but are similarly stymied. Christian Sandvig of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has been studying the brouhaha, believes regulators ought to enforce more openness.
Broadcom and Atheros say that making the interface information public would be illegal, because it could allow users to change the parameters of a chip in ways that violate the rules for using unlicensed spectrum (for example, by increasing its power or changing its operating frequency). That is a worry, but it depends on rather a conservative interpretation of the law. The current rules apply to so-called "software-defined radios" (where the ability to send and receive signals is modifiable on the chip), and do not apply directly to Wi-Fi. Also, by supplying the data, manufacturers would not be held liable if a user chose to tweak the chip in unlawful ways. And in any case, if the firms are really worried, they could release most of the interface, keeping back those features that are legally sensitive.
Nor is the interface information commercially sensitive. Engineers are not asking for the computer code that drives the interfaces, merely for the means to talk to them. And having the interface information in the public domain should eventually result in more chips being sold. So it is hard to see what the problem is beyond a dog-in-the-mangerish desire not to give anything away. Time to open it up, boys.
Remember that Huygens was to sink beneath the waves rapidly, but as it sank, it would take pictures of the ocean? So much for the wisdom of the scientists!
Are those lumps of ice as one suggested or are they rocks? They look more like rocks.
Does Huygens have a bore? Imagine what would happen if they found silver, uranium, plutonium, platinium, etc. on Titan! The biggest "gold" rush ever!
FF has bugs, which isn't surprising considering it is barely out of "beta" or testing mode and is not by Microsoft. It also can't do much with pages that require features only Internet Explorer has, such as the ability to run Active-X programs. These features are part of the reason IE is so riddled with malware(what malware?), but they also allow it to interact with certain websites. Until Firefox finds a way around that, you might have to keep Internet Explorer around -- just for emergencies, of course(Why bother switching when you can just use IE all the time?). Firefox has a number of features that make it obvious how little Internet Explorer has changed over the past several years(We are comfortable and see nothing else that needs change). One of the most popular is the use of "tabs," which allow a user to open multiple pages within the same window. You can set Firefox so that when you click on a link it opens that link in a new tab, and the tabs you have open are grouped together in a tab toolbar at the top of your browser window. You can store a group of tabs and open them all when you load Firefox.(I've never found that necessary or desirable, so why use them??). FF's greatest feature is adaptability(Get with the program - the IE program!). One benefit of the open-source format is that any programmer who wants to can write a bit of software called an "extension," which adds features to the browser.(That's real malware!) There are hundreds of these extensions listed already at Firefox's home page (http://getfirefox.com), including everything from a plug-in that lets you play music from your browser toolbar(why?) to one that lets you search an on-line dictionary by clicking on a word(Big deal!). (Lots of toys and geektweaks in my opinion!)Don't take this seriously or troll me please! Its a joke!
I am actually a FFFan, but ya'll are good enough defenders of FF. Go Firefox!!!!!!
He states that it was a intelllectual pursuit to release viri that attack inpervious systems. It's not good, but its not criminal to reform and go protect against your friends work. However, consequences follow, so being arrested is a logical result.
Viri-writing on his resume is a problem. But to antivirus software companies, a former virus writer should be a asset, since they have firsthand experience on how the viruses work.
Firefox and Thunder don't work on my "older system". Mozilla does. It has a webpage editor. But integrate FF's code coloring with Composer. I like FF more, but if FF does'nt work, go Suite!
It is true that many people use Windows, but the cost of developing on Windows would be a bit. Also, even though he makes a good point, they should get someone seen as unbiased. Look at the comments berating him for self-promotion. He tells the truth, but he is rebuked for telling the truth because he is affiliated with the company that makes it.
Anyway, Geeks use linux to start with, so it's not like they'll take him seriously!
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I don't think that it has hands? It con't hit the door to close it and duck in, could it?
G desktop works fine with FF as default browser, it just doesn't index the history of FF or Tbird. Just a little problem - just a little nuisance. I got rid of it for those reasons, since I don't need to search for anything else.
Make Suggest the homepage, and take off the locals part. Who cares if it is local on the Internet, anyway?
It automatically HTML formatts it and I forget to plain-text it.
Maybe I won't get terrible karma for this... And look at the date before you say redundant! Spam levels are about to skyrocket, according to experts who warned this week that spammers have developed a new way of delivering their wares. According to the SpamHaus Project--a U.K.-based antispam compiler of blacklists that block 8 billion messages a day--a new piece of malicious software has been created that takes over a PC. This "zombie" computer is then used to send spam via the mail server of that PC's Internet service provider. This means the junk mail appears to come from the ISP, making it very hard for an antispam blacklist to block it. Previously, zombie PCs have been used as mail servers themselves, sending spam e-mails directly to recipients. "The Trojan is able to order proxies to send spam upstream to the ISP," said Steve Linford, director of SpamHaus. Linford believes that this Trojan horse was created by the same people who write spamming software. ISPs in the United States may have already been hit. "We've seen a surge in spam coming from major ISPs. Now all of the ISPs are having large amounts of spam going out from their mail servers," Linford said. This will cause serious problems for the e-mail infrastructure, as it is impractical to block mail with domain names from large ISPs. Linford predicts that ISPs will see a growth in the volume of bulk mail they send and receive over the next two months, with spam levels rising from 75 percent of all e-mail to around 95 percent within a year. "The e-mail infrastructure is beginning to fail," Linford warned. "You'll see huge delays in e-mail and servers collapsing. It's the beginning of the e-mail meltdown." Linford said that ISPs need to act fast to take control of the problem. "They've got to throttle the number of e-mails coming from ADSL accounts. They are going to have to act quickly to clean incoming viruses. ISPs have so much spam--they are too understaffed to call people up and tell them they have Trojans on their machines. And no one would know what you're talking about." Antispam company MessageLabs confirmed Linford's findings. "This ups the ante in the need for filters," said Mark Sunner, chief technology officer for MessageLabs. "It makes it more difficult for people who compile blacklists, which is why spammers are doing this. It will put more pressure on ISPs to take greater interest in the traffic they carry and filter at source." The Information Commissioner's Office, the United Kingdom's point-of-call to report spam, said it had received no complaints of bulk spam from ISPs. Some U.S.-based ISPs contacted by News.com said an e-mail meltdown has yet to arrive. But technicians at some of the largest Internet providers have acknowledged the issue and similar exploits in the past. Many, but not all, U.S. ISPs have blocked open relay ports, such as port 25, to shut out spammers from disseminating messages from home-operated servers. The block has helped some broadband ISPs limit the output of zombie spam, and some have noticed the new form of malware taking shape. Time Warner Cable, the nation's second largest cable company, said it had become aware of this spam "vector," as it calls it, and has mechanisms to control it, according to company spokesman Keith Cocozza. He noted that the company's ISP, called Road Runner, has outgoing e-mail limits in place, but declined to elaborate on how the company monitors and responds to this malware issue. Earthlink, which runs a dial-up and broadband service, said it noticed a gradual increase in spam volume coming from its legitimate mail servers since the beginning of 2004. The company claims it has implemented safeguards, such as authenticated SMTP servers and re-routing of legitimate e-mail, to cut down the flow. "Overall we've been able to greatly reduce the amount of spam from our network by routing activities and applying chokepoints," said Trip Cox, Earthlink's chief technology officer. Cox added that the measure have reduced spam from 30 percent of the ISP's total e-mail volume to 2 percent.
When the consumer buys Quicken, they own the program now. Then they may CHOOSE to get the updates. Intuit should not send an 'update' that crashes or uninstalls Quicken. But they can stop updating, since that is a service, and they cans stop supporting it, but they can't ta
Did you here about the cell phones that rot and fertilize a built in sunflower seed! Better not drop it in water!
Lettuce is nice, especially as a small leaf salad. Or you could have just a few in their own pots, and eat the outer leafs every once in a while. Okra is geeky, though a little tall, you can always cut it down when it gets too tall. That would need pollination. For something viney, sweetpotatoes work well, though not easy to get to produce anything. Radishes are a little out of taste, nor are they pretty aboveground. Cucumbers need pollination too, and are not too easy.
In the way of flowers, a lemon tree would be right on. Also try a butterfly bush. It would need frequent pruning to keep it small, but it could be done for a year or two.
What not to do: Peppers are tough except for hot ones, so if you like them, go to it. Tomatos are miserable. Wheatgrass is all right, but not very longlived.
He said that he wanted something legal, not Cannabis. Are morning glory seeds illegal, and why? Stick to the subject!
Billy
Incedentally, there are "Warning: mysql_connect(): Too many connections in /Users/silver/Sites/visualize/includes/database.my sql.inc on line 31
Too many connections" to the database about that tool. Suppose we've \.ted it!
Billy
It really is confusing when you've got Centrino and Celeron.
Billy
But it didn't remove the second because the file was a unist.exe. That didn't happen again!
I still have Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware, but MS's is a good supplement.
Billy
Exactly!!! However, involuntary funding of candidates, by appropriating tax dollars, is terrable, but you did not mention that.
they should start by infiltrating the developer's ranks at the major companys first. No need for a whole army!
Spammed man sued by alleged spammer wants cash
January 18 2005
by Jo Best
Legal aid the PayPal way
A man who claims he has been receiving unsolicited emails from a US company for two years is now being sued by them, for branding them spammers and reporting their actions to ISPs.
Jay Stuler is now on the receiving end of a lawsuit from New Hampshire firm Atriks, which alleges Stuler caused financial harm to the firm and caused it to lose contracts. The suit also states that Stuler had been making defamatory statements, including calling CEO Brian Haberstroh a "criminal" and the company "a notorious spam gang", which the suit denies.
Stuler, however, says on his website the case is a "frivolous lawsuit designed to harass and intimidate" and claims the reason he's been sued by Atriks is because, after complaining to his ISP about the alleged spam, the company saw its accounts closed down by the service providers.
"They apparently are angry that spamming has become difficult for them and blame me," he said. "If I can be sued simply for complaining about spammers, then anyone can be."
In the court filing, Atriks states that: "The activities of Atriks, in providing internet hosting, and DMC, [a company registered at the same address as Atriks] in sending commercial email, meet the requirements of the CAN-spam Act."
Anti-spam foundation SpamHaus has listed Atriks on its register of known spam operations (ROKSO), which states the company has violated the act by using misleading subject lines.
SpamHaus also says it has had complaints that software is being installed by Atriks on users' computers without their permission - which is a felony.
"Spamhaus has received numerous reports of the VirtualMDA software discovered running on people's computers without their permission, they have no idea what it's doing or how it got installed there, and they are certainly not getting paid for the use of their computer [as Atriks/Sendmail claims to do]," the ROKSO says.
Stuler is appealing for help from the public in fighting the suit and has set up a PayPal account to pay for his legal fees and is asking for donations.
"If and when my legal bills are paid in full, any donations received will be passed on to others being harassed by frivolous lawsuits from spammers," he adds.
Intel's latest portable computing platform is here. We lift the lid on the improved CPU, chipset and wireless components, and outline the benefits that mobile professionals are likely to experience.
After many months of delay, Intel's new 'Sonoma' portable processor and chipset combo is ready for inspection. The Centrino platform has been one of the company's notable successes over an otherwise bumpy period, as it has included most functions a notebook computer needs while balancing high performance against battery life. This recipe is followed faithfully in this latest iteration.
Pentium M with 533MHz FSB
Centre stage is taken by a buffed-up version of the processor previously known as Dothan, now in its Pentium M business suit, fabricated in a 90nm architecture and topped off with 2MB of Level 2 cache. Most of the new Pentium Ms have a 533MHz frontside bus (FSB), giving what Intel claims is a 33 percent increase in memory data transfer over the previous chip's 400MHz.
Most of the new Pentium M processors have a 533MHz frontside bus. The flagship Pentium M 770 chip runs at 2.13GHz.
The updated processor range clocks in at speeds of 2.13GHz (Pentium M 770), 2GHz (760), 1.86GHz (750), 1.73GHz (740) and 1.6GHz (730). There are also low voltage (1.5GHz, 758) and ultra low voltage variants (1.2GHz, 753) with 400MHz FSBs, aimed at manufacturers making very slim and light notebooks. Power requirements range from 5 watts for the 753 to 27 for the 770.
The only other addition to the Pentium M architecture is support for the Execute Disable bit, which with operating system support -- provided by Windows XP Service Pack 2, for example -- can prevent buffer overflow virus or trojan attack code from executing on the system stack.
Most of the differences in the updated Centrino platform live in the Alviso chipset, now officially named the Intel Mobile 915 Chipset Family. This includes support for up to 2GB of DDR2 DRAM, which uses a lower voltage than DDR1, has a smaller page size and extra power-down modes. Although the higher speed of DDR2 somewhat negates these low-power features, Intel says that with the 915, DDR2 memory at 533MHz will peak at 60 percent faster than 400MHz DDR RAM, and can save an average of 120mW per stick.The new memory is physically smaller, too.
The new Mobile 915 'Alviso' chipset supports up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM, Serial ATA and PCI Express, plus improved integrated graphics and audio.
The 915 chipset also includes a power-managed Serial ATA disk interface, and PCI Express, which is advertised at being up to twice as fast for I/O and four times as fast for graphics. Expansion cards for this will follow the new ExpressCard format, which is around half the size of the venerable PC Card standard, and which has a somewhat squashed orange rabbit as its logo. Most, if not all, notebooks with ExpressCard launched this year will also have a slot for older formats, and most, if not all, ExpressCard cards this year will duplicate functions already available with PC Card.
Integrated graphics on the 915GM -- the Graphics Media Accelerator 900 -- includes DirectX 9.0 hardware support for 3D games, as well as high-definition, wide aspect ratio and TV standard outputs. Intel claims that the integrated graphics has twice the raw speed of the previous Centrino chipset, the 855GME, and that with two 533MHz DDR2 memory modules the chip can reach a preliminary 3DMark03 performance rating of 1,140. This compares with figures in the 5,000 range for high-specification desktop gaming configurations and is unlikely to excite the hard core, but should be sufficient for games a couple of years old. Most business applications are expected to be unaffected.
Likewise, adoption of the Intel High Definition Audio standard means that the 915 chipset can support multiple independent audio streams -- such as streamed telephony at the same time as surround-sound DVD playback -- in ways that may have consumer applications but are currently underexploited i
Computer chips for "open-spectrum" devices are a closed book
TELECOMMUNICATIONS used to be a closed game, from the copper and fibre that carried the messages, to the phones themselves. Now, openness reigns in the world of wires. Networks must interconnect with those of competitors, and users can plug in their own devices as they will. One result of this openness has been a lot of innovation.
Openness is coming to the wireless world, too. Cheap and powerful devices that use unlicensed and lightly regulated parts of the radio spectrum are proliferating. But there is a problem. Though the spectrum is open, the microprocessor chips that drive the devices which use it are not. The interface information--the technical data needed to write software that would allow those chips to be used in novel ways--is normally kept secret by manufacturers. The result could be a lot less innovation in the open wireless world than in the open wired one.
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Take, for example, the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN), in Illinois. This group is trying to create a so-called meshed Wi-Fi network. Wi-Fi is a wireless technology that allows broadband internet communication over a range of about 50 metres. That range could, however, be extended if the devices in an area were configured to act as "platforms" that both receive and transmit signals. Messages would then hop from one platform to another until they got to their destination. That would allow such things as neighbourhood mobile-phone companies and a plethora of radio and TV stations, and all for almost no cost. But to make such goodies work, CUWiN needs to tweak the underlying capabilities of Wi-Fi chips in special ways.
When its engineers requested the interface information from the firms that furnish the chips, however, they were often rebuffed. A few companies with low-end, older technology supplied it. But Broadcom and Atheros, the two producers of the sophisticated chips that CUWiN needs if its system is to sing properly, refused. Nor is CUWiN alone in its enforced ignorance. SeattleWireless and NYCwireless, among other groups, have similar ideas, but are similarly stymied. Christian Sandvig of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has been studying the brouhaha, believes regulators ought to enforce more openness.
Broadcom and Atheros say that making the interface information public would be illegal, because it could allow users to change the parameters of a chip in ways that violate the rules for using unlicensed spectrum (for example, by increasing its power or changing its operating frequency). That is a worry, but it depends on rather a conservative interpretation of the law. The current rules apply to so-called "software-defined radios" (where the ability to send and receive signals is modifiable on the chip), and do not apply directly to Wi-Fi. Also, by supplying the data, manufacturers would not be held liable if a user chose to tweak the chip in unlawful ways. And in any case, if the firms are really worried, they could release most of the interface, keeping back those features that are legally sensitive.
Nor is the interface information commercially sensitive. Engineers are not asking for the computer code that drives the interfaces, merely for the means to talk to them. And having the interface information in the public domain should eventually result in more chips being sold. So it is hard to see what the problem is beyond a dog-in-the-mangerish desire not to give anything away. Time to open it up, boys.
Printable page E-mail this Wireless broadband Shan't! Jan 6th 2005 From The Economist print edition Computer chips for "open-spectrum" devices are a closed book TELECOMMUNICATIONS used to be a closed game, from the copper and fibre that carried the messages, to the phones themselves. Now, openness reigns in the world of wires. Networks must interconnect with those of competitors, and users can plug in their own devices as they will. One result of this openness has been a lot of innovation. Openness is coming to the wireless world, too. Cheap and powerful devices that use unlicensed and lightly regulated parts of the radio spectrum are proliferating. But there is a problem. Though the spectrum is open, the microprocessor chips that drive the devices which use it are not. The interface information--the technical data needed to write software that would allow those chips to be used in novel ways--is normally kept secret by manufacturers. The result could be a lot less innovation in the open wireless world than in the open wired one. RELATED ITEMS More articles about... Computer technology The internet Mobile telecommunications Websites Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network, SeattleWireless, NYCwireless, Broadcom, Atheros Advertisment Take, for example, the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN), in Illinois. This group is trying to create a so-called meshed Wi-Fi network. Wi-Fi is a wireless technology that allows broadband internet communication over a range of about 50 metres. That range could, however, be extended if the devices in an area were configured to act as "platforms" that both receive and transmit signals. Messages would then hop from one platform to another until they got to their destination. That would allow such things as neighbourhood mobile-phone companies and a plethora of radio and TV stations, and all for almost no cost. But to make such goodies work, CUWiN needs to tweak the underlying capabilities of Wi-Fi chips in special ways. When its engineers requested the interface information from the firms that furnish the chips, however, they were often rebuffed. A few companies with low-end, older technology supplied it. But Broadcom and Atheros, the two producers of the sophisticated chips that CUWiN needs if its system is to sing properly, refused. Nor is CUWiN alone in its enforced ignorance. SeattleWireless and NYCwireless, among other groups, have similar ideas, but are similarly stymied. Christian Sandvig of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has been studying the brouhaha, believes regulators ought to enforce more openness. Broadcom and Atheros say that making the interface information public would be illegal, because it could allow users to change the parameters of a chip in ways that violate the rules for using unlicensed spectrum (for example, by increasing its power or changing its operating frequency). That is a worry, but it depends on rather a conservative interpretation of the law. The current rules apply to so-called "software-defined radios" (where the ability to send and receive signals is modifiable on the chip), and do not apply directly to Wi-Fi. Also, by supplying the data, manufacturers would not be held liable if a user chose to tweak the chip in unlawful ways. And in any case, if the firms are really worried, they could release most of the interface, keeping back those features that are legally sensitive. Nor is the interface information commercially sensitive. Engineers are not asking for the computer code that drives the interfaces, merely for the means to talk to them. And having the interface information in the public domain should eventually result in more chips being sold. So it is hard to see what the problem is beyond a dog-in-the-mangerish desire not to give anything away. Time to open it up, boys.
Thank you. Billy
I do too... Ice + meteorites?
Are those lumps of ice as one suggested or are they rocks? They look more like rocks.
Does Huygens have a bore? Imagine what would happen if they found silver, uranium, plutonium, platinium, etc. on Titan! The biggest "gold" rush ever!
Cool!
Billy
FF has bugs, which isn't surprising considering it is barely out of "beta" or testing mode and is not by Microsoft. It also can't do much with pages that require features only Internet Explorer has, such as the ability to run Active-X programs. These features are part of the reason IE is so riddled with malware(what malware?), but they also allow it to interact with certain websites. Until Firefox finds a way around that, you might have to keep Internet Explorer around -- just for emergencies, of course(Why bother switching when you can just use IE all the time?). Firefox has a number of features that make it obvious how little Internet Explorer has changed over the past several years(We are comfortable and see nothing else that needs change). One of the most popular is the use of "tabs," which allow a user to open multiple pages within the same window. You can set Firefox so that when you click on a link it opens that link in a new tab, and the tabs you have open are grouped together in a tab toolbar at the top of your browser window. You can store a group of tabs and open them all when you load Firefox.(I've never found that necessary or desirable, so why use them??). FF's greatest feature is adaptability(Get with the program - the IE program!). One benefit of the open-source format is that any programmer who wants to can write a bit of software called an "extension," which adds features to the browser.(That's real malware!) There are hundreds of these extensions listed already at Firefox's home page (http://getfirefox.com), including everything from a plug-in that lets you play music from your browser toolbar(why?) to one that lets you search an on-line dictionary by clicking on a word(Big deal!). (Lots of toys and geektweaks in my opinion!) Don't take this seriously or troll me please! Its a joke!
I am actually a FFFan, but ya'll are good enough defenders of FF. Go Firefox!!!!!!
Billy
Viri-writing on his resume is a problem. But to antivirus software companies, a former virus writer should be a asset, since they have firsthand experience on how the viruses work.
Firefox and Thunder don't work on my "older system". Mozilla does. It has a webpage editor. But integrate FF's code coloring with Composer. I like FF more, but if FF does'nt work, go Suite!
Anyway, Geeks use linux to start with, so it's not like they'll take him seriously!
Billy