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| PHP4 no longer supported | 14-July-2007 |
| PHP.net has announced the official end-of-life for PHP4. All users are encouraged to upgrade to PHP5 before January 1, 2008. Only critical security updates will be made after that date, for at least eight months. | |
| Yahoo closes photo-sharing website | 10-July-2007 |
| Yahoo is closing it's Yahoo Photos website in order to focus it's efforts on Flickr.com. In addition to the option of easily moving photos to Flickr, Yahoo has created tools for automatically moving photos to PhotoBucket, Snapfish, and Shutterfly. A planned export tool for the Kodak Gallery has not been implemented. | |
| Top Linux Foundation member finds new job at Microsoft. | 13-June-2007 |
| The Linux Foundation's former director of engineering, Tom Hanrahan, is Microsoft's new Director of Linux Interoperability. | |
| Xandros follows Novell's lead and signs with Microsoft. | 5-June-2007 |
| Half a year after their controversial deal with Novell, Microsoft has signed a similar arrangement with Xandros. Intellectual property protection and interoperability are the main subjects of the deal, which requires future Xandros distros to include office suit file type interoperability translators. | |
| Adobe's XMP toolkit get new release, and a new license. | 31-May-2007 |
| Adobe has updated it's popular XMP toolkit to version 4.1.1, and the new release should be compatible with most open source programs. Adobe has chosen the BSD license for the XMP toolkit, ensuring compatibility with GPL code while allowing closed-source used of the software. Existing open source applications are already implementing the code, and at least one project has switched from GPL to BSD licensing to take advantage of Adobe's work. | |
| Dell sells computers with Linux pre-installed | 25-May-2007 |
| After months of anticipation, Dell has begun selling computers with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed. The systems are no cheaper than their Windows counterparts, but are equipped only with hardware know to work under Linux. The systems offered are the Inspiron laptops, the Dimension entry-level desktops, and the powerful XPS desktops. | |
| Sue me first, Microsoft! | 21-May-2007 |
| The Digital Tipping Point wiki has a new section that should provoke the full wrath of Microsoft's legal division. Entitles "Sue Me First, Microsoft" the page invites FOSS users to list their contact information so that Microsoft can sue them if in fact FOSS software infringes on Microsoft's patents. The initiative challenges Microsoft to prove it's IP claims against FOSS software, specifically Linux and Open Office. | |
| Russian school headmaster fined for pirating Microsoft software | 9-May-2007 |
| 12 computers with pirated Microsoft Windows operating systems and Microsoft Office software discovered in a Russian school were cause for a Russian court to fine the school's headmaster half a month's salary. The court determined that the unlicencesed software was responsible for over ten thousand dollars damage to Microsoft. | |
| IE 30 times as vulnerable as Firefox in 2006. | 6-May-2007 |
| A recent survey shows that Internet Explorer users who kept their machines patched with the most up-to-date security patched from Microsoft were vulnerable to attack 285 days in 2006. Firefox users who kept their browser up to date were still open to attack, albeit only 9 days total. | |
| New study examines server availability and speed. | 3-May-2007 |
| Mon.itor.us has published a rather interesting study of webserver uptime and speed. This is not a typical biased Windows vs. Linux vs. BSD competition, rather, a very open study with most of the data available for public review. Only the most obvious conclusions are drawn from the study, with the rest left to the reader to discover by looking at the data himself. Surprise, Linux is not number 1 here! | |
| Google removing malicious websites from Adwords. | 1-May-2007 |
| Google's "Do no evil" mantra may as well be "promote no evil" as well. Google is now removing over 20 Adwords advertisers who attempt to download trojans to Internet Explorer users. Additionally, the company actively promotes the safer Firefox web browser. | |
| New website answers users technology questions for non-techie users. | 24-April-2007 |
| Although hundreds of websites provide technical information for those who love technology, What Is What aims to help those who don't have computer science degrees. A simply "Ask" form searches the site for previous answers, and emails the webmaster questions that have not yet been answered. New answers appear on the site every two or three days. | |
| Poor Vista sales see rekindled interest in Windows XP. | 22-April-2007 |
| Although Microsoft denies reports from it's head of operations in China that Windows Vista had sold less than 250 legal copies in it's first month of sales, the software giant is introducing a new version of Windows to impovershed areas of the world. Windows XP Starter Edition is now being bundled with the latest version of Microsoft Office for $3 US as a last ditch effort to combat open source alternatives such as Linux. Additionally, Dell has replaced Vista with Windows XP on some models due to customer demand. | |
| YouTube to start automatic filtration of copyrighten content. | 17-April-2007 |
| Popular video-sharing website YouTube.com has long had a policy of removing copyrighten material from their servers. New technology introduced by Google, who acquired the site late last year, will enable the company to identify and prevent copyrighten material from being uploaded even before it is saved. Not only will this prevent copyright infringement, it will help open the door to cooperation between YouTube and the large media outlets. | |
| Spamhous will keeps it's domain name. | 22-October-2006 |
| A US Federal judge has ruled that taking the spamhous.org domain name away from the Spamhous organisation would disrupt the legal activities of the company, an objective deemed "too broad to be warranted". Plaintiff e360 has complained that the UK-based Spamhous's blacklist is blocking Americans from receiving their email. As Spamhous does not block email, rather provide a list by which individual ISPs can tag email as spam, e360 has been branded as a liar in addition to spammer by many. | |
| Domain tasting leaves bad taste in mouth. | 19-October-2006 |
| ICANN if finally taking moves against domain tasters. The term applies to those who register a domain name, check the traffic for a few days, and then return the domain name for a full refund is it is determined that the name will not generate any appreciable traffic. New rules for the .org top level domain would fine a registrar 5 cents if over 90% of its registrations are returned. The move will be voted upon, and if successful, will be incorporated into the .com and .net registration facilities as well. | |
| New Linux filesystem announced. | 14-October-2006 |
| The popular ext3 filesystem is about to be updated. Details of ext4 are beginning to surface, and the new filesystem will be %100 backwards compatible with ext3. That means that ext4 can be mounted as ext3 on systems that do not support ext4, however, ext4's advanced features will not be available in those situations. Those features include journalling, extant disk allocation, and support for 1024 petabytes per volume. | |
| Eudora goes open-source. | 12-October-2006 |
| The popular email client Eudora is going through some major changes, according to parent company Qualcomm. The next version of the software will be open source, and based upon Mozilla's Thunderbird email client. The reason for the change is to allow Qualcomm to exit the software business while allowing the community to maintain the application. Qualcomm instead intends to focus on it's main business model, digital wireless communications products. Although the current Eudora is of completely different codebase than Thunderbird, Qualcomm has devoted a team of engineers to port popular Eudora features to Thunderbird, such as MoodWatch and ESP. | |
| Vista is more creative than pirates- and more annoying. | 7-October-2006 |
| Microsoft has released details of it's latest plan of action in the fight against software piracy. Although the company depends upon software piracy to prevent pirates from jumping ship and installing Linux, Microsoft is reducing the number of features available in pirated copies of Windows. Instead of simply disabling illegal copies of Windows Vista, features such as the Aero interface will be disabled, and web browsing sessions will be limited to one hour. Additionally, the memory extension features of the operating system will be disabled, and frequent popups will annoy the user. | |
| Texan middle school introduces PDA's to students. | 4-October-2006 |
| Harby Junior High School in Alvin, Texan, no longer have to worry about the teacher confiscating their Dell Axims. In fact, the devices were given to them by the school's administration in an effort to bring technology into the classroom. Assignments are handed in via wireless communication, and students are allowed to beam other documents between themselves. Teachers do have the right to confiscate and examine the contents of the devices, however. This year, 250 machines have been put into service in Harby Junior High, and another 1000 devices are planned for district-wide distribution next year. | |
| Two mini Linux PCs break the $100 barrier. | 28-September-2006 |
| Last month, Tailand's NorhTec corporation released the MicroClient Jr. sub-$100 PC. Now, Taiwan's E-Way Technology Systems has released a similar, yet more powerful, unit. While the NorthTec box sports a 166 mHz x86 (Pentium-compatible) processor, E-Way Technology's machine ups that to 200 mHz. Both machines are capable of running small Linux distributions such as DSL or Puppy Linux. The systems sport 128MB RAM, and integrated VGA, ethernet, PS/2, USB, and other ports. | |
| HP recalls cameras due to fire hazard. | 6-June-2006 |
| After an HP Photosmart R707 digital camera had caught fire and cause smoke damage to a home, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a recall for the product. Apparently, the unit is prone to overheating when left on it's docking station with non-rechargeable batteries installed. Hewlett-Packard has released a firmware download which corrects the problem. | |
| UK journalists unite to boycott Yahoo. | 2-June-2006 |
| UK's top journalists union is stepping up a boycott of all of Yahoo's services as of today in response to Yahoo's disclose of information to the Chinese government. The journalists ascribe recent arrests and convictions of Chinese citizens to Yahoo's supply of personally-identifying evidence that they had broken Chinese censorship laws. While Yahoo's policy "condemn[s] punishment of any activity internationally recognized as free expression", it also must comply with the laws of each and every country in which is operates, according to Yahoo spokesperson Mary Osako. | |
| Courts keep Apple leakers under cover. | 28-May-2006 |
| A California state appeals court has overturned an earlier court ruling that would have allowed Apple Computer Inc. to discover which one of it's employees leaked information regarding a future product to online media. Apple claims that employees who leaked information regarding the as-yet-unidentified "Asteroid" product should not be protected under the same laws that protect.traditional offline journalists from being exposed for reporting on confidential matters. Although Apple did not immediately return phone calls for comment, The Electronic Frontier Foundation - representing the websites who had published the information - called the ruling "a huge win." | |
| Hack-Mac sites shut down | 17-Feb-2006 |
| When Apple decided to port Mac OS-X to x386 architecture, it was obvious that the hacker community would try to crack it to run on non-Apple machines. This week two popular OS-X sites were shut down after publishing instructions on how to do just that. In addition, an anti-pirate Haiku was found buried within the OS-X source code. | |
| Seagate once again stacks up | 16-Jan-2006 |
| Seagate's new 160 MB 2.5 inch notebook hard drive gives data an interesting twist- literally. This drive stores it's data vertically on the disks, instead of the traditional horizontal method. This keeps neighboring bit further apart, therefore reducing the chance that they would interfere with each others magnetic alignment. Seagate is the second manufacturer to release disks based on the new technology, after Toshiba. | |
| New York in ethanol stink. | 12-Jan-2006 |
| If George Pataki has his way, 250,000 New Yorkers may be lining up to pump ethanol in the near future. This is the estimated amount of vehicles on New York's roads that are ethanol-capable- and their owners most likely don't know it. The state has opened a website that helps vehicle owners identify the fuel alternatives available to their particular model, and new pumping stations are in the works. | |
| Intel inside? Leap ahead! | 4-Jan-2006 |
| After 37 years of success, the familiar Intel logo is retiring. One month after Intel replaced it's Chief Marketing Officer, a new logo and Slogan are being deployed. The apparent motivation for the change is to emphasize the company's presence in consumer electronics such as cellphones and personal media players. | |
| Texas getting tougher with Sony. | 23-Dec-2005 |
| Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has added yet another complaint to his suit against Sony BMG Music Entertainment. In addition to the current charges of installing spyware on users' computers, Sony is now accused of doing so even when users turned down the EULA. | |
| Technology-Sleuth goes Beta! | 20-Dec-2005 |
| We are proud to move Technology-Sleuth into its last pre-release phase. Stay tuned for new questions, answers, and the latest news. | |
| Some new questions answered today. | 27-Nov-2005 |
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What is HDTV? What is a cellphone? |
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| Yet another two articles available. | 27-Oct-2005 |
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How can I be safe online? Why are Internet Greeting Cards dangerous? |
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| Authors wanted! | 1-Oct-2005 |
| Know a little about new technologies? Want to share your knowledge? We have lots of questions that need answering. Write to me at "submissions at technology-sleuth dot com" and we'll arrange something. | |
| Two more articles online! | 14-Sep-2005 |
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What is a router? What is a firewall? |
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| First two articles published! | 2-Sep-2005 |
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What are the advantages of LCD monitors? How much memory will I need for my digital camera? |
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| Technology Information | 28-Aug-2005 |
| Technology is the application of science, especially to industrial or commercial objectives, or the scientific method and material used to achieve a commercial or industrial objective. Electronic or digital products and systems considered as a group is another interpretation of the word technology. In Anthropology, technology is considered to be the body of knowledge available to a society that is of use in fashioning implements, practicing manual arts and skills, and extracting or collecting materials. Technology is the science of the application of knowledge to practical purposes, or a scientific method of achieving a practical purpose. It may be the practical application of science to commerce or industry. The word technology also refers to the discipline dealing with the art or science of applying scientific knowledge to practical problems. | |
| Technology-Sleuth Alpha launch! | 26-Aug-2005 |
| Welcome to Technology-Sleuth.com. This site has the purpose of being a central resource for technology-related information. My goal is to provide the community with a place to ask questions and to get answers. However, both the computer-elite and the computer-illiterate may wonder what the advantages of an LCD monitor are. I wouldn't give them both the same answer, so here I developed the three-answer system. Every question is answered with a short answer, a long answer, and a technical answer. | |