Sep
24
2008
0

Googlephone disappoints…

IT Media sources reporting on the Googlephone release and it’s manifest inadequacies when compared to the Jesus Phone quoted Steve Jobs…

“I laughed so much a little bit of wee came out”

  • No headphone jack
  • No bluetooth stereo
  • No iPhone-like touchscreen ability
  • No Client for sync’ing your calendar, contacts etc
  • Keyboard quoted as ‘mediocre’
  • Plastics and build quality reported as poor

Wow…what an own goal !

Written by Scott Brown in: Computers and Internet, Technology | Tags: , , ,
Sep
23
2008
0

Aurora loveliness

Yum ! This imagineering concept converges communications, data, UI and OS into one seamless and beautifully conceived platform…if only one thing comes of this pllleeeeeaaasssssse let it be the semantic, clustered file system?

Sep
18
2008
0

windows 7 and IE8…whatever

Have been tracking the IE8 release cycle for a bit now and am thoroughly underwhelmed by it’s lack of innovation.

Then along comes Google’s Chrome with almost no fanfare and re-writes the browser paradigm. JS virtualisation in the app, threading in web apps presented as tabs…this is nothing more than an OS in a browser !

Then a little further research brought me to Aurora from Mozilla Labs…just delicious use of interface, component manipulation, semantic and relevance clustering in the FS and data sharing and manipulation between users in real time. Hope the UK BB environment evolves to be able to support this sort of interaction !

Written by Scott Brown in: Broadband, Computers and Internet, Technology | Tags: , , ,
Jun
17
2008
0
Mar
28
2008
0

Next time…read the small print

Apple has recently polished up it’s Safari for Windows browser codebase into some less reminiscent of an alpha-hackfest (much like it was when i tried their original release on a clean vista machine some months back) and have now slipped it in below the radar on many people’s machines as an automatic download/update on iTunes & Quicktime.

However the disclaimer and EULA you have to sign up for is a beaut…

Safari EULA conundrum

Now click accept on that in good faith…:0)

Written by Scott Brown in: Computers and Internet, Musings, Technology | Tags: , ,
Jan
15
2008
0

Flash lifts it’s skirts now with UPnP vuln.

Sigh…here’s the reason I hate flash ! Got into a huge scrap at work with a colleague arguing our customer-facing offering needed to be Web2.0 and RIA and that flash was the way to go as AJAX wasn’t ubiquitous yet etc etc and I politely pointed out that I personally, on all the browsers I use at home, block flash content.

And here’s why and here’s the original PoC code. Nice bundled-up, serialised SOAP call over an embedded flash object using an XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) vulnerability and UPnP (Universal Plug n Play - it makes those tricky little apps like MSN Messenger and Skype slip through your hardware and software firewalls like a hot knife through butter).

So the ongoing rule is learn to use your hardware properly and configure ONLY those ports on your firewalls that you really, really, really, REALLY need open and go home this evening and make sure UPnP is disabled on your router.

You have been warned…again !

Written by Scott Brown in: Broadband, Computers and Internet, Rants, Technology |
Jan
15
2008
0

Vista - see ya !

If this isn’t the final nail in the coffin of this abortive attempt to see off the Leopard advance I’ve no idea what is…

Windows Vista SP1 RC Refresh as it’s been snappily entitled has now been released to a slightly wider audience that those bleary-eyed nerdlings initially supplied with the hyoooge service pack earlier last year.

I’ve got a Vista Home basic on my second laptop at home, it’s fine but I’ve yet to get used to the wholesale changes they’ve made to where everything now resides (maybe if I made the switch and just got on with it !) but this ma-hoo-sive SP is just beyond a joke. There’s no doubt whatsoever in my mind that they rushed this codebase to RC1 last year to avoid a publicity meltdown as this scale of a Service pack is just taking the piss !

It ain’t going to be on my primary machine for quite some to come I can tell you…in fact I’m seriously, seriously considering this as my next machine.

I’m turning to the dark side…no doubt.

Written by Scott Brown in: Computers and Internet, Rants, Technology |
Nov
29
2007
0

Windows Vista causes brain meltage - official

This just in….Vista dialog causes widespread cerebral meltdown

Vista Dialog

Go figure :0)

Written by Scott Brown in: Computers and Internet, Funnies, Technology |
Nov
27
2007
0

phishing for lloyds

Just been sent in a phishing attempt, quite nicely done. Well crafted and linked back to the actual lloyds bank site

Main aim is to get you to punch in your user name and password and memorable answers which it then submits to a couple of email accounts. THESE EMAIL ACCOUNTS

mailto:lom.data@web2mail.com
mailto:lom.data@gmail.com

Please feel free to add these to the most useless and inappropriate mailing lists or offers sites you can think of. Ideally include them in any honeypot scripts you may have running on your site.

I thank you.

Written by Scott Brown in: At Work !, Computers and Internet, Rants, Technology |
Nov
26
2007
0

Enum anyone ?

I’ll bet very few of you out there will have heard of ‘enum’ other than in coding terms as in ‘enumerating’ over a collection or array. Well I’m stating for the record now, in a very few short years it’ll be the glue that binds you to your ‘Uniform Resource Identifier’ or URI.

At the moment we all probably have a phone number, some of us will have a mobile and a very few of us might have a VoIP address for internet-routed calls to your VoIP (typically Skype but other services are available) phone. The real problem is that there’s almost no way of making this information follow you around unless with every email signature or business card you have great big list of contact details !

Enter ‘ENUM’ (Depending where you look - Electronic NUmber Mapping System aka TElephone NUmber Mapping) . This works on almost the same principle as DNS does for web address on the internet.

The end result is that by entering a ‘NAPTR’ record into the DNS entries on your domain when someone calls on your main phone number, if it finds you unavailable it can do a lookup for your next preferred means of communications which might be your mobile, then that’s not available it follow you down to your VoIP number and finally if this still can’t get to you it’ll drop you an email with the voicemail of the call as an attachment…all transparently and without you having to look up/remember a series of numbers.

This is the future..and I like it !

Written by Scott Brown in: Computers and Internet, Technology |

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