Computer News

The attempt to set a world record with the number of downloads for Firefox 3 today seems to have caused a crash to all Mozilla websites.

I wonder if there are designers in Hollywood specialized in making covers for teen movies. If there are, I'm sure they badly need a source of inspiration to stop using the same cliche over and over again when creating the cover design.

Hmm, I wonder what do these covers have in common…

Kids in America (2005)

Pigs (2007)

The New Guy (2002)

The Weekend (2007)

I guess someone made a mistake and deleted PayPal's CSS file, as this is what I'm getting when trying to access the website in any browser:

I was just trying to login to PayPal and there it is! The PayPal homepage stayed like this for at least 10 minutes - I wonder how many people were affected by this. Screenshot:

I'm not sure if Google is testing new things or these are some special kind of ads only provided to certain publishers.

I just saw a very weird AdSense ad on weirdomatic.com. Here's a screenshot:

The interesting thing was that you could only click the girl's face and hands (on the laptop keyboard, as well as the "English Chat" text). It wasn't a flash ad though.

Any ideas on what this might be ?

Microsoft has big plans in store for its Windows Vista operating system. The company released a release candidate version of Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows Vista in mid-November. SP1 is supposed to address a number of performance-related issues with Vista and includes a number of security update and bug fixes that have been rolled out since the operating system launched over a year ago.

In addition to the previously mentioned SP1 features, Microsoft is looking to make pirating Vista a tougher endeavor. The Redmond, Washington-based company says that new measures introduced with SP1 will further reduce piracy — piracy for Vista is already less than half that of Windows XP according to Microsoft.

One loophole that Microsoft will close is the current method of extending the "grace period" to activate Vista. Original versions of the exploit allowed users to extend the grace period from 30 days to 120 days. Later variations of the hack extended the grace period to a full year, while yet another extended the grace period to the year 2099.

"Under this new system, no features will be disabled. Instead it will be a notification-based experience similar in some ways to what we have done with XP. A user of a system that has not been activated and gone through the 30-day grace period to activate will, when logging in on the 31st day, see a dialog box on a plain black background," said Microsoft group product manager Alex Kochis.

"That will give them two options: Activate Windows now, which will bring up all the options to do this, and activate Windows later, which takes them directly to their desktop, which will be exactly the same as it had been the last time they used it, except that there will be a plain black background and a message in the lower right hand corner over the system tray telling them that their copy of Windows is not genuine," Kochis continued.

Microsoft will also put a stop to the OEM BIOS exploit which allows unscrupulous Vista pirates to edit systems files and a motherboard's BIOS to fool Windows into thinking that it is installed in a genuine OEM system.

These latest additions to Vista, however, will do little to quell those who continue to rally behind Microsoft's venerable Windows XP operating system. Due to customer demand, Microsoft extended the shelf life of Windows XP and has given OEMs the ability to provide Windows XP downgrades for customers who are unhappy with their new Windows Vista-based machines. In addition, recent testing has shown that Vista SP1 is no match for Windows XP SP3 in OfficeBench performance which got much play around the web.

Not surprisingly, Apple has pounced on Microsoft's Vista woes and has a number of television commercials which poke fun at Vista's "inferiority" to Windows XP.

Source: DailyTech

Microsoft Corp. is pulling back from a system that disables programs on users' computers if it suspects the software is pirated, opting instead for a gentler approach based on nagging alerts.Microsoft said late Monday it will roll out the new version of Windows Genuine Advantage with the first "service pack" for Windows Vista, due in the first quarter of 2008.

When computer users activate a copy of Windows Vista or try to download certain software from Microsoft's Web site, the Windows Genuine Advantage system scans their PCs for signs of pirated software. Today, if the tool finds an unauthorized copy of Vista, the glassy Vista user experience disappears and other features are suspended.

In the new version, PC users found to have a pirated copy of Vista will continue to be able to use their computers, but with unmistakable signs their operating system is a fake. The desktop wallpaper will turn black, and a white notice will appear alerting users to the problem. Each time they log in, they will be prompted to buy legitimate software, and every hour, a reminder bubble will appear on the screen.

Users with a high tolerance for irritation can put off switching to genuine software indefinitely, but those who relent and buy a real copy of Windows can do so at reduced prices — $119 for Windows Vista Home Premium, half the regular retail price.

"We want to make sure unwitting victims get a great treatment," said Mike Sievert, a corporate vice president in Microsoft's Windows marketing group.

Windows Genuine Advantage collects several pieces of information about a PC during the check, including the serial number on the hard drive and its IP address, but Sievert says none of that can be used to identify individual PC users.

In August, the Windows Genuine Advantage team at Microsoft accidentally updated its servers with computer code that wasn't quite ready for prime time. As a result, Microsoft said "fewer than 12,000" people who tried to validate software over a two-day period couldn't.

Some found legitimate copies of Windows hobbled after the tool labeled them pirated, and an outcry spread across Web forums and technology news sites.

Sievert said the glitch in August was unrelated to the change in how the Windows Genuine Advantage tool will work.

"Microsoft realizes it has to take a different approach with their customers," said Chris Swenson, a software industry analyst for market researcher NPD Group. "If you shut down someone's computer, you're going to anger customers."

Microsoft also said Monday the package of Vista updates will fix two holes in the operating system that have allowed pirates to create counterfeit copies — one that mimics the activation of software by computer makers before a PC is sold, and one that extends a grace period given to people who install new software, before they must activate it.

Sievert said Microsoft plans to offer an update for Windows Genuine Advantage that will run the piracy check regularly without the computer user initiating the process.

Source: Yahoo! News