Japan’s Suffering Continues – Crocs Donates 100,000 Pairs of Shoes

The Denver Post reports –

Niwot-based Crocs Inc. announced today that it has donated 100,000 pairs of shoes to Feed The Children and other organizations, which will work to distribute to those hardest hit by the recent earthquake and resulting tsunami.

Continue reading HERE.

 

Samsung Admits To Installing Keyloggers on New Laptops

UPDATE – 3/31/2011

Just one day after this story spread across the internet, it has been found to be erroneous. A false positive by Vipre Antivirus software caused the issue. Vipre has accepted responsibility for the error.

Read the details HERE.

 

NetworkWorld reported –

A user discovered a keylogger pre-installed on two brand-new Samsung laptops that the company admitted was there to “monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used.” Mohamed Hassan wrote in Mich Kabay’s Security Strategies newsletter that as soon as he received his Samsung R525 laptop, he ran a full system scan and found a commercial keylogger called StarLogger. StarLogger claims it records every keystroke made on the computer, even on password-protected boxes, starting up whenever the computer starts up. The software emails results at intervals to a specified email address and will even include screen captures. Hassan ended up buying a second Samsung laptop, a model R540, and found the same keylogger installed on that one. “The fact that on both models the same files were found in the same location supported the suspicion that the hardware manufacturer, Samsung, must know about this software on its brand-new laptops,” he writes.

– and in another post …

The supervisor who spoke with me was not sure how this software ended up in the new laptop thus put me on hold. He confirmed that yes, Samsung did knowingly put this software on the laptop to, as he put it, “monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used.” In other words, Samsung wanted to gather usage data without obtaining consent from laptop owners.

Continue reading HERE or HERE.

That’s Not A Camera! [comic]

original source

The Nerd Life According to Conan O’Brien

One of the co-founders of Microsoft has purchased a Russian fighter jet.

He said, “If this doesn’t get me laid, I give up.”

 

FreeFile Review – 2011 Big Browser Round-Up

With both Firefox and Internet Explorer releasing major upgrades in March, I thought now would be a good time to test them both and give Chrome another look.

Internet Explorer 9 was up first. Things started going downhill during the installation. Even though I had all programs closed, the installer insisted on closing 7 background programs. This list included Microsoft’s antivirus program – Security Essentials. That’s right, IE 9 shut off my antivirus protection to install itself. My second issue with IE 9 was with importing of bookmarks. I have a large collection of bookmarks, arranged in folders. Internet Explorer would import only a small percentage of the bookmarks and most of the ones that were imported were pulled out of their folders(the folders were not imported). The most serious strike against IE 9 is that it is only available for Windows 7; all earlier versions of Windows, including XP, cannot use IE 9. Overall, IE 9 seemed to perform well – it never crashed or had any page rendering issues. The interface is quite stripped down and atractive, but I cannot recommend IE 9.

Firefox 4 jumps on the minimalization bandwagon by replacing the Menu Bar with a single button and disabling the Status Bar by default. Those are the major interface changes and both are easily reversed, if you prefer a look more like Firefox 3. Another major upgrade is the improved Add-ons Manager. Firefox 4 seems faster and it did not crash. Of course, extensions are the reason to use Firefox. All of my extensions from FF3 were available on FF4, and I found 2 more I had to have. If you like to browse your way, Firefox is the browser for you. With a large library of extensions, themes and other add-ons, Firefox can be personalized like no other browser.

Last year, I gave Chrome a very poor review. I decided to give Chrome 10 another shot. Speed is still Chrome’s strong suit. I did not experience the crashes that had occurred frequently last year. My major complaint with Chrome is the lack of customization. This has not changed since last year. Almost nothing on the interface can be altered and the selection of extentions is pathetic. Chrome takes the minimalization to the extreme – the Home Button, Bookmarks Bar and Status Bar are all disabled by default. The Home Button, Bookmarks Bar can be enabled, the Status Bar cannot. Chrome’s worst feature may be the Downloads Bar. It is 2 or 3 times the size of a standard bar, it is activated and animated with every download and it cannot be disabled. I just realized that Chrome is the browser equivelant of OSX – do it their way or don’t do it at all. My opinion of Chrome is much improved due solely to the improved reliability.

– – The Bottom Line – –

Firefox 4 is the best of the lot. Speed and reliablity have improved and it offers the most personal browsing experience. Chrome is the right choice if the lack of customization is not important. I can’t recommend Internet Explorer 9.

Download Firefox 4 HERE or Chrome HERE.

Visit DanKostecki.com for more FreeFile Reviews.

Executives Never Change [comic]

super-size it

10 Clever Uses For Spare Thumb Drives

LifeHacker presented this interesting article about how to re-purpose that old thumb drive that you have laying around. I’ve already done two of the suggestions (Emergency recovery drive and Portable Apps drive) and I’m planning to try the Digital time capsule. Most of the suggestions are excellent, except for the Virtual RAM drive. A Virtual RAM drive requires a very fast (new) thumb drive and even then it does very little to improve the performance of Windows.

Read all 10 suggestions HERE.

 

Oxford English Dictionary Adds ‘Heart symbol’ – ‘Middle Finger symbol’ Still Left Out

According to Mashable –

Before you take to the comments to ream us out about the above headline: “OMG,” “LOL” and the symbol for “heart” have all been added to the Oxford English Dictionary Online. According to the OED‘s site, the newest edition of the dictionary (which comes out online today) revises more than 1,900 entries and includes a ton of new words — including the neologisms above. So what do OMG and LOL mean to the OED? In the electronic realm, they’re merely shorthand for surprise and mirth. In the real-world space — according to the OED’s blog post — “The intention is usually to signal an informal, gossipy mode of expression, and perhaps parody the level of unreflective enthusiasm or overstatement that can sometimes appear in online discourse, while at the same time marking oneself as an ‘insider’ au fait with the forms of expression associated with the latest technology.”

Continue reading HERE.

 

The WTF Headline of The Day – “One Vagina Can Hold…”

The VillageVoice presented this gem –

Read the original post HERE.

Animated Solar System Model

A very nice looking solar system model is available HERE. Not much to do, but take a look at it.

Go to the animation.

GOP Proposes Dental Coverage [video]

Need Something New To Worry About? – Here’s 6

Cracked (known best for humorous lists) presents a rather serious list. ‘6 Important Things You Didn’t Know We’re Running Out Of’ will give you something new to fret over. The list starts with helium and chocolate and adds 4 more. If you are not sufficiently depressed –

read the list HERE.