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1029usr078198
Forum Admin
USA
333 Posts |
 Posted - January 23 2009 : 06:45:51
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Listen now. or Download the archive.
Question: I’m getting lots of emails advertising news sites for President Obama. Are these sites legitimate?
Answer: No, they aren’t legitimate. (Are they ever?) These messages have headlines that make you think, “That can’t be true!”, like “Obama refuses to be a president”. If you do click the link in the email, you’ll get one of several wonderful malware applications. I know that many of us send emails to our friends with links to news sites. If you get any email message on any subject that’s news-worthy, especially if it seems far-fetched, be leery. If the story is truly legitimate, it will be carried by more than just one news site. So, check Foxnews.com, CNN.com, msnbc.com, or other news site you trust first.
Cool Site: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com: Who likes free software? What about free commercial software? Each day, giveawayoftheday.com offers a free commercial software package. They make deals with the software makers to offer it for 24-hours only. You have to download, install and activate the package that day, but then it’s yours to keep. They certify that software they offer is adware and spyware free. This is a legitimate site, but because they have to have a new package to offer each day, you are probably not going to want them all. So take the ones you want, and skip the ones you don’t.
Cool Gadget: LG Wrist Phone: I saw this on the DL.TV podcast, but at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, LG showed a wrist phone that’s almost Dick Tracy-like. It’s not available in the US yet, but LG says a couple of the major carriers have shown interest in offering it. It’s got a touch screen that is very precise which is good, because you use it to dial. You can use a Bluetooth headset with it, but it also has a speakerphone feature and the microphone is sensitive enough that you can carry on a conversation even with the phone at your side, as if you were walking. Because the microphone is so sensitive, it includes noise cancellation that filters out a lot of the background noise. It plays MP3 music files and includes a calculator and stopwatch. Because you have to dial it with your fingers, it’s pretty large, so it will probably only appeal to guys. In general, ladies tend to prefer watches that are daintier than this could even think of being. We’ve got links in the show notes to several articles on this bad boy.
It's All “Geek” To Me: Hacker: Here’s a word that, as applied to computers, has meanings both positive and negative. Normally when we think of, and use, this term, it’s applied to bad guys. But that’s more of a media usage. It completely ignores the positive meaning. Originally, amateur radio enthusiasts defined the term hacking as creatively tinkering to improve performance. PC Magazine defines Hacker as someone who writes programs in very low-level languages. These languages make the programmer do all the work, so it requires more skill.
Links
TrendMicro Blog Entry about Obama Sites:
http://blog.trendmicro.com/fake-obama-news-sites-abound/
Giveawayoftheday.com
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com
Game Edition of giveawayoftheday.com
http://game.giveawayoftheday.com
Giveawayoftheday.com on About.com
http://freebies.about.com/od/freesoftware/qt/giveawayotd.htm
LG Wrist Phone:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338690,00.asp
Wrist Phone Full Specs:
http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_gd910-2644.php
Wrist Phone in Action on Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/07/hands-on-with-lgs-gd910-wrist-phone/
Wrist Phone on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR50ZcHrmC0
LG’s Press Release:
http://www.lge.com/about/press_release/detail/21062.jhtml
Hacker Culture on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_culture
Hacker definition at PC Magazine:
http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=hacker&i=44047,00.asp |
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1/23/2009-Obama,Giveawayoftheday,WristPhone,Hacker
