Category: General Tech

Flickr user sonnyhung has posted some screenshots of eWorld’s last moments. Here’s some background on eWorld:

Apple’s marketing and promotion efforts were at best indifferent. The service was only available on the Macintosh, along with e-mail only support on the Newton handheld. Apple was in a challenging financial position at the time and CEO Michael Spindler told the Online Services Group that significant marketing for the service could not be provided so eWorld shipped on new Macs with only an icon on the desktop and a brochure in the box. There was also little if anything in the way of media marketing for the service. The promised Windows version of eWorld was not launched following a decision by Apple’s senior management to position eWorld as a unique service for Macintosh owners.

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TUAW on SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone:

So, here we are, more than three weeks after SlingPlayer Mobile was submitted to the app store, and there’s still nothing. Nada. Bupkis. Zlich. In the meantime, Sling Media has alienated many Slingbox owners by intimating that a lot of their older gear won’t work with the iPhone app when (or if) it is released.

Disappointed with the slow rate of progress and the constant stream of rumors, I checked with Sling Media today to get the official word on what was up. Cathy Cook, a spokesperson for the company, says the app was submitted, and that Sling Media and Apple are in regular touch with each other. She says anything else people hear is rumor and conjecture. She added that Sling Media thinks the app is ‘solid and a great experience’ and they’d like nothing better than to have it in the App Store.

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John Gruber, on Tweetie for the Mac:

There is much to like about Tweetie for Mac, but what I like best is that it is visually quiet. Most of the new desktop Twitter clients I’ve checked out try to show more at once. Twitter by its nature is inherently distracting; I want a client that doesn’t exacerbate it.

I couldn’t agree more. The program is freaking unbelievable for a 1.0 release. I’ve been using it all day and haven’t found anything I dislike.

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MacJournals has posted the text shown on the new “Legal Copy” ad from Apple:

Please note: trying to remove registry items on your own is not recommended. It is often difficult to determine which items correspond to which applications, and by attempting to remove items yourself, you might accidentally remove a valid registry item, causing software crashes and errors. If a system registry becomes corrupt because you made a mistake when cleaning out the registry, follow these steps: back up data, back up registry, purchase, download, and install Registry Repair program, quit all programs, scan registry, determine safe registry items to repair/delete/remove, then select ok and repeat if necessary. Also, easy to use PCs can experience difficulty if malware, viruses, or spyware infect your PC’s system. There are 1.5 million signature-based malware detections with 20,000 new ones discovered everyday (based on 2008 reporting). Although some viruses are unavoidable, there are some preventative measures that you can take. When you first get your PC, configure your security settings (including things like Internet firewall, automatic updating, anti-virus, anti-spyware and other malware protection, other Internet security settings, and user account control). Eventually you may have to download and install security patches for your operating system and then as security updates become available download and install again. If your PC does get infected with malware talk to your IT professional first about the risks and benefits of treating the problem on your own. Do not try to remove a virus unless your IT professional has taught you and you understand everything. Ask them if you have any questions. Please see accompanying important information about virus protection on your hardware and software manufacturer’s website. Anyone can sit down and edit photos on their PC as long as their computer is running properly. Please note that proper maintenance, specifically disk defragmentation can take anywhere from minutes to hours to run depending on the size of your hard drive and how fragmented it is. Therefore, editing photos might be postponed if you chose to run maintenance on your computer prior to this act. Please note: your camera driver must be installed on your PC in order to review and edit your photos. Your camera will not work with your PC if the software/drivers are not downloaded first. Editing photos on a PC may be difficult for children under a certain age, or for people who are unfamiliar with how a PC works and how to download camera software and drivers. Also, no PC connected to the Internet is one hundred percent immune to viruses, spyware, adware, and other forms of malware. Once a year, PC users should back up a year’s worth of photos and files to a CD or DVD. Power PC users should start fresh and back up all their files and applications on an external hard drive, then use your original system installer disks to erase, rebuild, and reinstall your operating system from scratch. Therefore, if your PC is not one hundred percent trouble free at least you won’t lose all of your files. PC does not claim ownership of problems that occur from materials or software that you downloaded off the Internet. If your warranty has expired, and your PC is not one hundred percent trouble free, you are not eligible for a refund or replacement under the terms of the warranty. In addition, we cannot help you with software or hardware obtained without a warranty, such as software provided “as is “ or for free. Again, if problems continue, please contact your IT professional.

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Background on OSX.Trojan.iServices.A & .B:

Back in January, it was discovered that a trojan horse was running around on the Internet affecting OS X.

There have been a handful of these things in the last few years, but this was the biggest one to date.

The trojan horse was bundled inside an iWork 09 (which has just been released) installer available on several bit torrent sites.

The iWork trojan horse piggy-backed on the legitimate iWork Installer (this getting an administrator password to install itself) and installed a package named iWorkServices.pkg in the /System/Library/StartupItems folder with read-write-execute root privileges - meaning that these packages were started as boot with admin privileges, meaning any future actions could be completed without user intervention. Anything in the System/Library/StartupItems folder is a big deal because is affects all users on the system. Thus, even trashing a user and creating a new one, doesn’t kill the iWorkService package.

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Tweetie, the popular iPhone Twitter client, is about to land on the Mac. A longtime user of Tweetie, I was excited to see Macworld’s “first look” at the upcoming software:

Tweetie sports a healthy dose of visual flair without trying to get you drunk on whooshing around. Clicking between your friends’ tweet list, mentions, and direct messages, for instance, will quickly slide the current list up or down to make way for the new one. Clicking the icon of a second account in the left sidebar will slide it up to the top of the window and reveal its own buttons for mentions and direct messages. Double-clicking a reply will employ a fancy fade-zoom, revealing a list of all the back-and-forth tweets by participants. For a functional UI finish, small blue badges appear next to the timeline, mentions, and direct message sections to inform you of new messages. They also appear below the icons for your other accounts, so you know whether it’s worth switching over.

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It seems Apple has grown tired of the “You Find It, You Keep It” ads from Microsoft. Macworld:

“Millions of people have switched to Mac because they love the security, stability and power that comes with world-class hardware and amazing software that just works, right out of the box,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans, told Macworld. “A PC is no bargain when it doesn’t do what you want. The one thing that both Apple and Microsoft can agree on is that everyone thinks the Mac is cool; with its great designs and advanced software, nothing matches it at any price.”

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Computerworld’s Windows guru, Preston Gralla, on spending two weeks on the Mac:

For PC users, Mac OS X takes some getting used to, but once I did, I found it a more elegant, polished piece of work than Windows (either XP or Vista). With so many nice little touches, it seemed as if I was finding a new one every day.

It’s a long, but good, piece. And a must-read for any new users. Most people who return their Macs and go back to Windows do so in the first two weeks.

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As a Memphis native, I found this quite interesting:

Today’s weird Apple rumor has the turtle-neck exec moving to Memphis, Tennessee, of all places. The idea is that Jobs is going south to help treat his pancreatic cancer–Memphis, it turns out, is the home of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Private equity blog PEHub is citing a “well-connected business person in Memphis” as the source of the odd rumor.

Odd, indeed… but just weird enough to be almost believable.

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Yesterday, I discussed the work of BJ Fogg, a social media guy at Stanford, and I said I could not find the pricing for his 6-week Facebook course. Turns outs there was a reason I couldn’t find that information. Here’s an email I received from him this morning:

FYI – To date. I’ve not received a dime for teaching parents about Facebook at Stanford.

This was a public service. And the parents were grateful.

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Over the last few months, I’ve grown increasingly annoyed by social media - and those trying to make a buck off of it as “social media gurus.”

So what does CNN do? Give me someone else to dislike:

Many of these older folks use social networks to keep tabs on younger family members and they often find fruitful connections with their peers after they’ve friended all of their kids and grandkids, according to an informal survey by Stanford University professor BJ Fogg.

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Wired:

“We have invented this idea of retail 2.0,” says Gilbert Fiorentino, chief executive of the Technology Products Group at Systemax, now parent company of CompUSA. Fiorentino is also the founder of Tiger Direct, a web only electronics retailer and another subsidiary of Systemax. “Every screen in every CompUSA store is now connected to the internet and making buying a richer experience for customers,” he says.

It’s that kind of under-developed thought process that killed CompUSA the first time around. Why drive to a store to order something with a computer? Sure, the CompUSA store may have it in stock and be able to help you load it in your car, but if it they can’t compete with online stores like Newegg, the instant gratification factor may not be big enough, no matter how shiny the store is.

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