Journal SPAM: "NRO: Forty Years of Reconnaissance." 4
This is one of those cases where reality is far weirder than anything a parodist could imagine: "NRO: Forty Years of Reconnaissance."
Journal Journal: Google Desktop For Mac: More Toy Than Tool
Being none too enamored with Spotlight for OS X, I decided to give the newly released Google Desktop for Mac a try for searching through my hundreds of thousands of files (clipart, music, word processing, e-mails, etc.). I was none too impressed. While it does have some nice features, some bugs and idiosyncracies make it more of a toy than a tool, especially if you us
Submission + - Jeremy Allison's Advice to Young Programmers
Hyram Graff writes: "Jeremy Allison has written a wonderful piece with advice to young programmers. As someone who's been out of college for just over a year, I find it to be a very insightful piece. Please allow me to say, thanks Mr. Allison!"
New Tools Help Create Cellphone-Friendly Web Sites 78
David Kesmodel from WSJ writes "New low-cost tools are making it easier for companies to register and build Web sites designed for cellphones, the Wall Street Journal reports. Domain-name registrars such as GoDaddy and Network Solutions are starting to roll out all-inclusive packages to target the mobile Web. And mobile-content specialists such as the U.K.'s Bango Ltd. offer their own mobile kits that help companies set up a basic mobile Web presence. Even so, the wireless Internet is still a long way from attracting a critical mass of users."
Feed News: Harris Poll: Users balk at Vista upgrade (macworld.com)
Researcher Has New Attack For Embedded Devices 86
tinkertim writes "Computerworld is reporting that a researcher at Juniper has discovered an interesting vulnerability that can be used to compromise ARM and Xscale based electronic devices such as many popular routers and mobile phones. According to the article, the vulnerability would allow hackers to execute code and compromise personal information or re-direct internet traffic at the router level. Juniper plans to demonstrate not only the researcher's discovery, but also how he managed to use a common JTAG developed Boundary Scan to discover the vulnerability at this month's CanSecWest conference in hopes of shifting more of the black hat community to looking at devices instead of software."
Submission + - password restrictions by ISPs
catalina writes: "I recently discovered that ISPs (and/or web hosting companies) seem to restrict user passwords to alphameric-only, yet most of the security articles recommend using special characters (!@#$%^&*()_+:;"'.?/) in passwords.
I found this out by accident, after TimeWarner migrated Comcast customers. My Comcast password seems to have been moved successfully to the TW system, and my email was being delivered by POP using the Comcast password. When I had occasion to change the password, I discovered that their password tool wouldn't accept the old PW apparently because of the special characters. Their help desk confirmed that only alphamerics were allowed in passwords.
In calling around to various other ISPs and web-hosting customers, it seems that most, if not all of them restrict passwords to A-Z, a-z, and 0-9. Why is this?"
I found this out by accident, after TimeWarner migrated Comcast customers. My Comcast password seems to have been moved successfully to the TW system, and my email was being delivered by POP using the Comcast password. When I had occasion to change the password, I discovered that their password tool wouldn't accept the old PW apparently because of the special characters. Their help desk confirmed that only alphamerics were allowed in passwords.
In calling around to various other ISPs and web-hosting customers, it seems that most, if not all of them restrict passwords to A-Z, a-z, and 0-9. Why is this?"
Feed Energy Use Study Demonstrates Remarkable Power Of Social Norms (sciencedaily.com)
Psychologist Wesley Schultz of California State University, believes that despite the fact that we want to be normal, most people are very bad at estimating what normal human behavior really looks like.
Feed Flavonoids: Now Chemists Can Synthesize This Anti-cancer Agent (sciencedaily.com)
Flavonoids. You've heard of them -- the good-for-your-health compounds found in plants that we enjoy in red wine, dark chocolate, green tea and citrus fruits. Mother Nature is an ace at making them, producing different ones by the thousands, but no chemist has figured out a good way to synthesize a special class of these chemicals in the laboratory. Until now.
Feed Bladder Cancer Linked To Androgens And Androgen Receptor In Mice (sciencedaily.com)
Male sex hormones and their receptors may be involved in the development and progression of bladder cancer, according to a study in mice published in the April 4 Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Submission + - Google My Map
sas-dot writes: Computer world reports Google has created a tool to let non-technical users create Google Maps mashups, extending this capability beyond the realm of software developers.
The feature, called My Maps, is designed to let users who don't have formal programming knowledge to create, annotate and publish online maps on the Google Maps platform.
My Maps aims to provide to non-technical users some of the mashup capabilities that have been available for several years to developers via application programming interfaces (API), which require programming knowledge to use.
Another blockbuster from Google?
Another blockbuster from Google?
