Archive for 2009

Cyber-criminals have started preying on Verizon Wireless customers, sending out spam e-mail messages that say their accounts are over the limit and offering them a “balance checker” program to review their payments.

The e-mail messages, which look like they come from Verizon Wireless, are fakes; the balance checker is actually a malicious Trojan horse program.

Have you ever noticed the great number of attacks which strike people with email, usually from their bank? I think the banks should reward customers who don’t click on those emails with cancun vacations or something similar.

What do you think?

Speaking of the new Droid phone.

Internet giant Google unveiled a free navigation system for mobile phones Wednesday in a move seen as a potential challenge to the makers of standalone GPS navigation devices.

US telecom carrier Verizon Wireless and US handset maker Motorola announced simultaneously that a smartphone going on sale in the United States next week, the Droid, would be the first to feature Google Maps Navigation.

Wow. I love the idea of free turn by turn navigation, but I really need a phone that will help me find walk in tubs and comparable items for our basement.

The iPhone can’t do that, can the Droid do that?

I’ve heard the new Droid phone is pretty cool. iPhone cool? Who knows.

Verizon and Motorola have been pumping scores of hype into the release of the Motorola Droid, yet another smartphone hailed as an iPhone killer. After spec and picture leaks and premature Web site launches, the Droid has finally received the hands-on treatment, and so far the acclaim is near unanimous.

When they show me that I can do my online banking, buy movie tickets, make dinner reservations, check term life insurance prices, and start my morning coffee, then I might look at it.

Awesome news for Facebook, but since this affected our accounts, shouldn’t we be the ones who get the new tile flooring because of it? I would hate to see the powers that be at Facebook wasting that money on, well, donuts and bagels and such.

Social networking website Facebook was awarded $711.2 million in damages relating to an anti-spam case against Internet marketer Sanford Wallace, court documents show.

Wallace did not oppose the motion or appear at the hearing on September 18, 2009, according to a filing on Thursday in a San Jose, California federal court.

The site filed an anti-spamming case against Wallace in February for accessing people’s Facebook accounts without their permission and sending phony mail and posts to the individuals’ public message wall, the company said in a blog post.

Maybe they could paint my walls too?

Things are going to get very interesting around the internet, very soon.

The body in charge of assigning the world’s Internet users their online addresses on Friday said it had agreed to allow the use of any of the world’s scripts, no longer just the Latin alphabet.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which approved the change at a meeting in Seoul, said in a statement it could lead to a dramatic rise in the number of Internet users.

“This is only the first step, but it is an incredibly big one and an historic move toward the internationalization of the Internet,” ICANN’s President and CEO Rod Beckstrom was quoted as saying.

I hope this doesn’t interfere with finding the best best wrinkle cream on the internet. I am getting old you know.

I was sitting here working tonight, wishing I could get a new receipt printer to use with my billing software, and I saw this come across my reader.

As an avid iPhone user, and someone who runs several WordPress blogs, I am happy to see this latest release from Automattic.

WordPress 2 for iPhone is now available for downloads in the App Store. The new app is packed with lots of features

…

Please note: The WordPress for iPhone 2 is a completely new application. If you are using a older version of WordPress app for iPhone, you will not be able to upgrade it, you will have to download the new application instead. You can safely remove the older version of the app, once you have installed version 2.0.

Awesome stuff man.

You can find anything using Google. You can find good restaurants, you can find doctors, heck, you find a place that does a good colon cleanse if you want too. I’ve seen homes of the rich and famous, and I have seen lots of other things using Google Maps, why not some of the poor areas of the world?

Rio’s favelas are home to a third of the city’s population, but are almost invisible on maps — a situation five young women are trying to change with the help of GPS and the Internet.

Rafaela Goncalves da Silva, 21, has lived in the Santa Marta favela, a poor and dangerous slum that was recently the target of a police pacification operation, since she was two years old.

I use Firefox for everything. On my PC and my Mac, Firefox is my browser of choice. I use it for everything from ordering pizza to looking at truck accessories.

Mozilla developers have blocked a Firefox plugin that was quietly pushed out by Microsoft, saying that it presents a security risk.

It makes you wonder how bad the plugin has to be in order for Firefox to pull it without warning.

My iPhone has an app for everything. I can shop at several different store, order pizza, and even buy movie tickets all from my phone. I wish I could find a replacement gswf water filter for my refridgerator though. I know there probably isn’t enough demand for applications that help you shop for hardware items for the home, but you’d think some of the bigger home improvement stores would jump on that bandwagon and get the wheels rolling.

There seems to be some debate about Google’s “founding” date.

Google’s actual founding date is subject to debate. There are those who think that Google should bring out the cake on the September 4, the day in 1998 that Google filed its incorporation papers and officially became Google, Inc. Still others think that Google should recognize September 15, 1997 as its founding date, as that is when Google registered the google.com domain. But despite the debate, Google has celebrated its anniversary on September 27 for the past few years now, making the date somewhat official.

Does it matter? Not really. Unless you’re trying to prove how much time you had on the job in order to collect social security disability or something, there’s no reason it couldn’t be celebrated in July if they wanted too.