The most valuable supply of worthlessness on the web
(via LifeHacker)
I read an article recently that said identity theft is significantly lower than most reported numbers indicate. I wish I could find that to link to it. Perhaps I can find it later and make mention of it. Regardless, there is an article over at The Consumerist about what you should do if you are one of the folks who does get your identity stolen.
[tags]Identity theft[/tags]
(via Engadget)
Microsoft has applied for a patent on technology to auto-censor audio streams. Here’s the abstract:
An input audio data stream comprising speech is processed by an automatic censoring filter in either a real-time mode, or a batch mode, producing censored speech that has been altered so that undesired words or phrases are either unintelligible or inaudible. The automatic censoring filter employs a lattice comprising either phonemes and/or words derived from phonemes for comparison against corresponding phonemes or words included in undesired speech data. If the probability that a phoneme or word in the input audio data stream matches a corresponding phoneme or word in the undesired speech data is greater than a probability threshold, the input audio data stream is altered so that the undesired word or a phrase comprising a plurality of such words is unintelligible or inaudible. The censored speech can either be stored or made available to an audience in real-time.
[tags]Audio auto-censoring[/tags]
(via OSNews)
If you’ve ever wondered where your preferred browser falls on the performance curve, this article at howtocreate.co.uk has lots of details. The short result is if you just want the fastest browser, you are almost certain to be best served by Opera. The gecko-based browsers (Mozilla, Konqueror, Galeon) do OK, but don’t beat Opera on anything but start time.
Ok, ok. Firefox and Mozilla are clearly optimised for Linux, and Opera is clearly optimised for Windows. These optimisations are mostly obvious with the loading times, although there is also a little difference in the cache handling on the different operating systems. However, Opera seems to perform admirably well on most tasks, on any platform. When it comes to page rendering (tables, CSS or images), most of the major browsers perform very fast, with very little to distinguish between them. When it comes to scripts, Opera clearly holds its head above the others, nearly twice as fast as the others. The only one that comes close is Safari 2.0, but that is tied to the Tiger release of Mac OS (currently in preview).
Opera also is a clear winner using history. In fact, on Linux it is faster than Mozilla and Firefox for all except starting time. On Mac and Windows, Opera is faster than Mozilla and Firefox for all tasks. Surprisingly, Mozilla is now faster at most tasks than Firefox (please don’t send me any more emails about this line, I am well aware of why it is faster). Internet Explorer on Windows was either as fast as – or faster than Mozilla and Firefox for most tasks, with the exception of scripts, where it took over twice as long.
There is a lot more to the article than this snippet. Please head over and read the full article for all the details.
[tags]Browser test, browser speed[/tags]
I nave no reason to get one of these. I can’t afford such a silly expenditure. But man, I wish I could buy any of the recently displayed portable media players I’ve seen over at TechEBlog. Here are just a few of the recent PMPs I wish I could get.
And there are more posted several times a week, it seems. Mostly, they are released in Korea with no announced US release date. So I’ll probably never get one of these, but I really think they are sexy.
[tags]Portable Media Players,PMP[/tags]
(via TechEBlog)
Wow.
 This sucker measures 2″ x 2″ x 2.2″ and holds a 300 MHz processor, 64 Meg of memory, an external video connector, and flash, USB, ethernet and serial ports. That’s not a lot of power, but it’s probably sufficient for a lot of day-to-day computing activities for most people.
[tags]Tiny computer[/tags]
(via FreewareWiki)
When you run a program on your computer, data flows from the hard disk to the program via read operations. The data is then processed and displayed, and finally flows back from the progam to the hard disk via write operations.
. . .
For example, if you run the Freecell program to play a game, it starts by reading the previously recorded statistics, displaying and altering them as you play the game, and finally writing them back to disk for future reference.
Sandboxie changes the rules such that write operations do not make it back to your hard disk.
. . .
If you run Freecell inside the Sandboxie environment, Sandboxie reads the statistics data from the hard disk into the sandbox, to satisfy the read requested by Freecell. When the game later writes the statistics, Sandboxie intercepts this operation and directs the data to the sandbox.
If you then run Freecell without the aid of Sandboxie, the read operation would bypass the sandbox altogether, and the statistics would be retrieved from the hard disk.
A run for anything sandbox to contain your programs and limit what they can do to your system. Sandboxie is free, and looks very, very useful. It’s going on my system for sure.
[tags]Sandbox, Sandboxie, Virtualization[/tags]
(via Bruce Schneier’s security blog)
As the headling says, a suit has been filed against Compaq (now HP) for false advertising. Michael Crooker is suing Compaq for advertising a feature called DriveLock, purported to make the hard drive unreadable without the proper password. After Mr. Crooker had his apartment searched by the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), his laptop was taken. Later, data from the hard drive was used in a later search of his e-mail account.
He bought it in September 2002, expressly because it had a feature called DriveLock, which freezes up the hard drive if you don´t have the proper password.
The computer´s manual claims that ¨if one were to lose his Master Password and his User Password, then the hard drive is useless and the data cannot be resurrected even by Compaq´s headquarters staff,¨ Crooker wrote in the suit.
. . .
The FBI had broken through DriveLock and accessed his e-mails (both deleted and not) as well as lists of websites he´d visited and other information. The only files they couldn´t read were ones he´d encrypted using Wexcrypt, a software program freely available on the Internet.
I’ll let you make your own decision about whether or not normal people should have access to security software of this type. I will say I view personal access to cryptography software to be as important as personal access to firearms. You, of course, don’t have to share my view, but if you don’t, I’d be interested in hearing why in the comments.
[tags]DriveLock, Cryptography[/tags]
(via Lifehacker)
I haven’t checked out the available line-up yet, but Channelchooser looks to be offering TV viewable online. If you want to see what the next big thing in TV *might* be, watch a little online. If studios ever figure out how to use the Internet for distribution, this kind of thing could catch on.
[tags]IPTV[/tags]
I’m not quite sure even how to describe this site, but I’ll try. There are a number of web sites that track web sites as recommended by surfers like you and me. You can see the latest hot web topics by watching Digg or Del.icio.us or other such aggregation sites. If you find all those overwhelming to keep up with, though, you might want to just look into monitoring popurls instead. Popurls aggregates the aggregation sites, basically. If you can keep up with the headlines and popurls, you’ll have a pretty good view of the most popular, interesting, and/or useful web sites at a given time. Of course, you’ll also see a lot of crap, but that’s because most of the web is crap.
[tags]Web aggregators, popurls[/tags]
(via LifeHacker)
This article at headrush really reflects the problem so many folks experience in the internet age. There’s too much information, and not enough time to keep up with it. I feel the bite of information overload every time I try to catch up with the techie world. And nearly every day, I find new sources of information to add to my RSS reading list.
Do you have a stack of books, journals, manuals, articles, API docs, and blog printouts that you think you’ll get to? That you think you need to read? Now, based on past experience, what are the odds you’ll get to all of it? Half of it? Any of it? (except for maybe the Wired magazine)
So you let the stack of “things to read” pile up, then eventually when the pile gets to high you end up tossing half of it–or worse, moving it to a deeper “stuff to read someday stack. We have selective amnesia about what we’ll ever get to, but mainly because most of us keep feeling like we have to keep up! Keep up with what?
You can’t keep up. There is no way. And trying to keep up will probably just make you dumber.You can never be current on everything you think you should be. You can’t simultaneously be current on:
It’s lenghty, but well worth reading. That is, if you can find the time. 🙂
[tags]Information Overload[/tags]
One of my favorite actresses of all times. Happy birthday today to Ms. Audrey Hepburn, born May 4th, 1929.
[tags] Audrey Hepburn, Happy birthday[/tags]
(via Engadget)
I’m a fairly good typist. I really like my Microsoft Natural keyboard. If I could get one of those done Das Keyboard style, I think I’d have to pick one up. If you aren’t familiar with Das Keyboard, go read the review at Extremetech and take a good look at it – all the keys are blank.
[tags]Das Keyboard[/tags]
