May 7, 2012 | Uncategorized
So if you applied the Lion Apple update 10.7.3 it turns on a system-wide debug log file that has the login passwords of all the users who have logged in since the update was applied and the worst part about all of this is that it is placed in clear text. Also if you used FileVault encryption software on the Mac before Lion but then upgraded but kept the folders encrypted by using the legacy version of FileVault is also vulnerable to this password issue. If you have FileVault 2 (whole disk encryption) is unaffected.
Security researcher David Emery was the one who found this flaw and posted all of his findings to the Cryptome mailing list. Although the bug has seen not been fixed, Emery goes into detail on how sever this issue actually is:
?This is worse than it seems, since the log in question can also be read by booting the machine into firewire disk mode and reading it by opening the drive as a disk or by booting the new-with-LION recovery partition and using the available super user shell to mount the main file system partition and read the file. This would allow someone to break into encrypted partitions on machines they did not have any idea of any login passwords for.?
If you use Time Machine backups to external drives. If this drive was stolen it will contain the log file with the passwords.
Now this update was put into effect back in February 1st of this year so this problem has been around three months now and with this being out in the open no mac is safe.
May 6, 2012 | Uncategorized
So if you were looking to use Windows Media Center in Windows 8 well hold on there because it will not come standard. You will have to buy it in an upgrade. This will also mean you will not be able play DVD’s! Well at least not out of the box. You will need to either buy the Windows Media Center Upgrade or have a third party software such as PowerDVD. I currently do not have numbers on how much it will cost to upgrade to the media center but Microsoft feels that TV and DVD use on personal computers are on the decline. Although it is not difficult to get DVD software as most drives you buy will come with some bundled or there is always free software as well, such as VLC Player and Media Player Classic just to name a few. So if you want Windows 8 you will need to buy an upgrade for the media center although both VLC and MPC are great free third party software that works great.
May 5, 2012 | Uncategorized
Any local United States business can use the new Facebook?s Offers product ? free-to-create coupons that businesses can share to the news feed, and that users can bring to stores to redeem these coupons. This was actually first announced in February at the FMC (Facebook Marketing Conference), this product has actually been in private testing with a select group of brands who worked with Facebook reps to run the offers. Now the promotional product is available in a self-serve interface.
While it will not cost businesses anything to run offers, Facebook could still make money on them. If they perform well in the news feed and drive business to physical stores, those stores may spend more on Facebook ads that increase their Page fan counts ? and the subscriber bases for the coupons.
So this is just another great idea Facebook has put into play to grow businesses and have more businesses interact in Facebook and bring businesses to spend more money with them.
May 4, 2012 | Uncategorized
In this fast pace world where we want things to happen in a push of a button and sometimes with that push of a button maybe we don’t pay attention to what could happen if we are careless. Well this story is about a man who bought a crappy song from Apple and was charged twice for it. Not only that but Robert Herkowitz feels that this happens too often and had filed a class action lawsuit against Apple for a sum of 5 million dollars. Alleging that the company ?double-bills? for purchases made on iTunes with ?troubling regularity? and that the company?s ?illegal? policies also apply to other digital stores like the App Store, the iBookstore and the Mac App Store.
Apple?s refund policy clearly states that Apple does not provide refunds in the event of a price reduction or promotional offering. Charging twice for a digital song, book or movie does not fall under that policy because its own terms limit it to price discount events only, Herskowitz asserts. So Apple wouldn’t refund him and if you are not paying attention to your account you could also be double charged and could possibly jump into this lawsuit. So keep a close eye on it.
May 3, 2012 | Uncategorized
With AT&T and Sprint still trying to corner the market in the LTE world, Verizon is going LTE broadband in the home.
Starting today Verizon’s HomeFusion Broadband service will bring LTE-powered Internet access nationwide. This service, which actually originally launched in March within six markets, feeds Internet to connected devices in the home ranging from computers to gaming consoles.
Verizon’s HomeFusion LTE will fly into homes through professionally-installed antennae receivers placed on the outside of the house (this will cost you $199.99), then transmit signal to a Wi-Fi router inside the house. Using Wi-Fi, customers can connect up to 20 devices. Customers should expect downlink speeds of between 5Mbps and 12Mbps and uplink speeds ranging from 2Mbps to 5Mbps.
Plans vary from $60 per month for 10GB of data, $90 per month for 20GB, or $120 per month for 30GB, with a $10 per GB penalty for each plan after reaching the cap.
May 2, 2012 | Uncategorized
Verizon has announced that it is launching an $80 prepaid plan that will come with 1GB of data and unlimited talk/text with a prepaid MiFi hotspot. The one thing you would need to do however is to get the Samsung Illusion which comes with a $169.99 but alas you are stuck with 3G speeds. There is also a prepaid LTE mobile hotspot with three prepay mobile broadband plans. Thie first is $15 which gives you 250MB of data usage within one week, a $60 plan that gets you 3GB of data over a month and a $90 plan that will get you 10GB per month. So you have a few new prepaid options available to you. The phone however is a actually a good deal as the other unlimited plans are over $90 without data So some nice prepaid options for those who want it.
