By Jin Nan Goto
Mozilla just released the final version of Mozilla Firefox 3.5. Here are some noteworthy changes for the newest version of Firefox.
- Support for HTML 5 and support for Open Video. Which does not use a plug-in like Adobe Flash or Microsoft Siverlight
- Adds Private browsing mode. Useful for keeping birthday presents a surprise :)
- Adds support for location aware browsing
- Improved performance rendering Javascript using the new TraceMonkey Javascript engine.
Here is a video released by Mozilla introducing Firefox 3.5. You can get the video at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/video/firefox-3.5.html. If I’m not mistaken, if you navigate to the page using Firefox 3.5 it uses HTML 5 Open Video.
As always you can get the latest Release of Mozilla Firefox at www.getfirefox.com
By Jin Nan Goto
Formatting emails in HTML is a very powerful tool and is often used very attractive emails. Examples of legitmate uses of HTML email are for online promotions or newsletters. However HTML has been heavily abused and has some very serious consequences for security. It is very easy to hide the true destination of a link using HTML. This is part of the nature of HTML. Here is the code used to create a link.
<a href=”evilsite.com”> (This is the actual address of the link)
https://www.onlinebankingsite.com</a> (A fake address posing as a legitimate site)
In HTML a spammer can easily define a url and include also descriptive text which is presented to the recipient rather than the link. The recipient does not see the url hidden behind the descriptive text and will click it, thinking it is the site referenced in the descriptive text, and is directed to whatever site the spammer wants. It is a potent tool often used in Phishing attacks to steal usernames and passwords, banking information, credit card numbers, etc.
Here is a real example
I got this suspected phishing email. The link says www.paypal.com. It’s also https so it’s secure right?
Here’s what what the link looks like if you look at the code. Notice that the real address for the link is not https://www.paypal.com, but an IP address.
How to protect yourself
1. The safest way to protect yourself is to turn off the display of HTML in your email program. This will ensure that all your messages are sent in plain text. This is the safest way to use email.
2. If you absolutely need to follow a link in an email, copy the descriptive text of the link and paste it directly into the address bar of your browser. This should ensure that the descriptive text is used as the address and not any hidden address.
3. Many email programs will automatically disable links in emails from unknown senders. They also will recognize the spoofed address and warn user before enabling the links. Although you should never rely on your email program to keep you totally safe.
By Jin Nan Goto
Microsoft released information on Windows 7 pricing. Essentially Windows 7 will be made available for the same price as Windows Vista with the exception of Home Premium which will get a price cut of $10 for the upgrade and $40 for the retail version.
From June 26-July 11 Microsoft and retailers such as Best Buy and Amazon will offer pre-orders for Windows 7 with a special upgrade price of $49.99 for Home Premium and $99.99 for Professional.
As with the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft will offer free upgrades to Windows 7 for all computers running Windows Vista Home Premium, Business and Ultimate. Although as with Vista details of the free upgrade (particularly regarding extras fees) will be left up to the OEMs. a
All the OEMs will be able to ship Windows 7 for all languages by the Oct 22 launch. All languages will be made available for the retail version by the end of October. In Europe, The full version of Windows 7E (created in response to the Anti-trust investigation in the EU) will be offered at the upgrade price until December 31st when upgrade versions are expected to be made available.
So here are the Prices:
Windows 7 Home Premium (upgrade version) - $119.99
Windows 7 Home Premium (full) – $199.99
Windows 7 Professional (upgrade version) - $199.99
Windows 7 Professional (full) - $299.99
Windows 7 Ultimate (upgrade) - $219.99
Windows 7 Ultimate (full) - $319.99
Prices and details about the expected Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade where you can go from one version of Windows 7 to another higher version have not been released yet. Also no word on any type of Family Plan or multiple license discount, but keep your fingers crossed.
My Thoughts:
Overall I’m not surprised at the prices, although I had hoped that Microsoft be more aggressive with the price cutting. I didn’t expect them to cut prices as drastically as Apple did with Snow Leopard ($129 was cut to $29) but a 10% discount across the board in this economy would have been nice. Still the special offer for preordering Windows 7 gives pretty substantial savings so I suggest that people take advantage of that deal.
By Jin Nan Goto
If you downloaded the official Windows 7 Beta back in January (build 7000 if you’re keeping track of these things), it’s license expires on July 1st and Windows will start automatically shutting down every two hours. So now is a very good time to move on from the beta to the Release Candidate(build 7100). Unlike the beta the RC will continue to function. You can download the RC until August 15 and it will stay valid until march 2010.
You can download the RC from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx. If you are so inclined you can try and get the latest build of Windows 7. Although these are not released by Microsoft and are really only available from somewhat questionable sources **cough—bittorrent. If you go for these later builds, be sure to check the MD5 checksum of these downloads to makes sure that you are not downloading and installing spyware and other unwanted additions. You can get a free md5 hashing tool from http://www.winmd5.com/.
By Jin Nan Goto
Back in November Microsoft announced that it will no longer sell Microsoft Live OneCare on June 30 and that the anti-virus aspect of OneCare will be replaced with a free Antivirus product codenamed “Morro”. Today a beta version of Morro has been released by Microsoft as Microsoft Security Essentials. The beta was released in 4 countries United states, Israel, Brazil and China.
I installed it on a couple of my machines and it seems to follow Microsoft’s claim that this is a leaner Antivirus with a low memory and processor footprint. The interface is very clean and simple as opposed to other anti-virus software. Overall it seems like a very good solution for a free anti-virus.
Screenshots
Installation went very smoothly. Although there were a lot more prompts than I would have liked.
Microsoft Security Essentials will only on validated Windows machines so it makes you pass validation before you can install it. This is pretty common for Microsoft’s downloads so I’m not going to complain too much about it.
Here’s the EULA
A reminder that you should only have one anti-virus software installed or else you will potentially have conflicts between the different AV products. In fact installing MSE will also disable Windows Defender (Vista’s built in Antispyware software).
Once you get though all the prompts the installation breezed through very quickly.
Installation is complete and you are prompted to download the latest Definitions and run a scan.
The interface is very clean and Changing the time and frequency for the weekly scans is very easy.
Not being willing to download an actual real virus to my computer just to get a screenshot, I downloaded the Eicar Test Virus and MSE immediately flagged it as possible malicious code.
It removed the test virus and everything turned back to a calming green.
By Jin Nan Goto
I was reading through a recent blog post from Harry McCraken (www.technologizer.com) with a comparison of the iPhone 3GS and the Commodore 64. It reminded me just how amazing it is that there is more power in the iPhone which fits in the palm of your hand than a an entire desktop computer 10-15 years ago. Just for fun I’m going to present another comparison. This showdown is between an 1996 vintage Apple Power Macintosh 6300 (the sort of thing I would find in the computer lab back when I was in Middle School) and the recently released Apple iPhone 3GS.
| |
Power Macintosh 6300
|
iPhone 3GS
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Year Released
|
1996 |
2009 |
|
Processor
|
PowerPC 603e
100-120 MHz |
600 MHz Arm |
|
Memory
|
16 MB |
256 MB |
|
Storage
|
1.2 GB |
16 GB or 32 GB |
|
Cost
|
$2500 |
$199 -$299 *with 2 year commitment with AT&T |
Power Macintosh 6300 Specs http://support.apple.com/kb/SP323
iPhone 3GS Specs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iPhone_and_iPod_Touch_models
Images from Wikipedia
By Jin Nan Goto
A download page for the Windows 7 Release Candidate was mistakenly posted on Microsoft TechNet. The leaked download page was taken down shortly and now is directed to the Beta download page. Interestingly, the RC download page was dated May 2009. It’s a very clear sign that we are going to a final release of Windows 7 later this year, just in time for Back to school sales and the holiday.
You can see a copy of the RC download page at ArsTechnica.
By Jin Nan Goto
One of the Great advantages Mozilla Firefox has are all the plug-ins and extensions. Firefox extensions and plug-ins can greatly enhance its abilities. TableTools is a nice gem that solves a big problem with HTML tables. It is difficult to extract the table from the webpage without breaking the table. If you cut and paste a table into Mircosoft Excel, the table will all be stuffed within a single cell. Moving tables from the web to a spreadsheet application is a very time consuming process.
TableTools is a Firefox Extension that gives you greater abilities to manipulate data stored in tables on the Web. Currently in version 0.26, You can sort and run filters on the data from within the browser. While the filters and sorting abilities by themselves can be useful, What Is really great about TableTools is that it lets you quickly and easily copy tables from the web into your favorite spreadsheet application. Simply copy the contents of the table as tab-delimited text (right click anywhere on the table and select “copy as Tab-delimited” from the menu item “Other table operations”) and then you can paste the copied data into a spreadsheet for use offline. You can get TableTools at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2637
By Jin Nan Goto
One real annoyance of modern technology may not be around much longer. The days when the types of power cables between different handsets varied widely are numbered. The GSMA announced a agreement between 17 cell phone companies and several major handset makers (LG, Motorola, Samsung, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson) which will work to make Micro-USB the standard connector type for Cell phones. This is a very welcome change (although one that will probably cost the Cell phone companies a good chuck of lost revenue), and micro USB is a very good choice as it can be used to transfer power and data. Since the cables can be reused with other phones and devices, consumers will spend less money on chargers and less of these cables will be sent off to landfills.
Mini and Micro USB chargers are already widely used in for handsets. Motorola, RIM (makers of Blackberry), and HTC (uses a mini USB connector for the G1). China already mandated that all cell phones in China be able to charge through USB. In fact, whenever I buy a cell phone I go out of my way to makes sure that it can be charged by USB. However many of these phones use an older USB specification “Mini USB” and not “Micro USB” which is the new proposed standard. Meaning, I’ll need to buy at least one more car charger.
External Links
CNET
WSJ Online
By Jin Nan Goto
To see the difference in philosophy between Windows and Macintosh computers you only need to look at the toolbars on their applications. Microsoft will try and fit many of the most commonly used commands onto the toolbar in order to reduce the number of mouse clicks it takes to perform the task. While functional, This tends to make Windows applications look cluttered. Apple takes a different approach and removes all buttons from the toolbar except the most important. This gives a cleaner and simpler look and feel to Mac Applications.
By default the only buttons that Safari, the Mac’s web browser, has on its toolare is a forward/back button, refresh button, A button that will clip part of the page and pin it to the Mac dashboard (not present on the Windows version of Safari), and the Add bookmark button. Safari does not have a “home” button that takes you back to your homepage like other browsers. I find the home button to be very useful and it’s something I want to be able to use in Safari. Adding the home button to the toolbar is very easy, and there are a couple other buttons you can customize the toolbar with. Thre are a print button and a button to increase and decrease the text’s font size. There are versions of Safari for both Macs and Windows computers. The following instructions will work on both versions.
Customize the Safari Toolbar
- Click on the “View” menu and select “Customize Toolbar”
- Drag and drop the icon from the popup onto the toolbar. You will see the other icons move to the side and make space for the new icon.
