2006 January

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:
I’m still waiting to get into the new Yahoo! Email beta, but I did notice something new when logging into Yahoo! mail yesterday. Outlined in red, actually. See the bitmap above.
Yahoo! used to let you login either securely (SSL, just as when you check out of a site like [...]

Chief Gizmateer of RealTechNews writes:
The first media bridge for gizmos such as PMPs, PSPs, Digital Cameras, Cell Phones and iPods that will free gizmo users from having to use computers to transfer media files is being released by Unicon Systems. Wired transfers can be made using MCopy and MBridge will allow users to transfer files [...]

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:
It’s not as good as a dual HD DVD / Blu-Ray recorder, but it’s interesting that earlier this week Samsung announced it had completed “technical development” of Blu-Ray drives for use in PCs … these drives, however, are not being developed by Samsung itself, but by TSST (Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology), [...]

Mark Evans of RealTechNews writes:
As Blood, Sweat & Tears sang in the 1960s, “What Go Up, Must Come Down” - and Google investors are living this adage as the stock retreated yesterday by $35 to $400. It seems like only yesterday - actually two weeks ago - that analysts were falling over themselves trying to [...]

Curious about what it takes to be a really world-class public speaker, where you can not only have people eating out of your proverbial hand, but also event organizers happy to pay you a fee to get involved? If you can’t attend a workshop on how to speak well, then the next best thing [...]

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:
Dan Kaminsky, a security reseacher, released information about the number and location of PCs which have been affected by Sony DRM software at the ShmooCon hacker conference last weekend. He worked out numbers and locations of “victim” PCs (or rather networks that have victim PCs) by collating information on communication [...]

It’s a question I hear with some frequency; how can you add an RSS feed to the pages of your own web site, home page or weblog? Many of the solutions are pretty complex, but it turns out that Newsgator Online - a free RSS aggregator and tools service - makes it incredibly easy [...]

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:
My female dog loves to play catch. She’s even got the outfielder thing down … I can throw a ball way up and far and she’ll circle around it like an outfielder and catch it. I’m sure she’d love this better … since it shoots edible treats (my male [...]

This one I have to personally take a pass on. My wallet is bulging with cards, and I don’t mean fancy cards like the black American Express, but all the nuts and bolts cards of normal life: movie rental card, ATM, Costco membership, calling card, credit card, health insurance card, building security ID card, frequent [...]

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:
Has it been that long? Actually, it seems like I can’t remember a time when we haven’t been fighting off viruses. The first virus was called Brain.A, and it was transmitted by floppy (remember those days?).
Read More on the Anniversary of the Virus Here
[tags]realtechnews,security,virus,michael santo,anti-virus[/tags]

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:
It’s not big news, but it is news … convenience-type news. Since the first Gmail beta rolled out, there’s been no Delete button. You had to select Delete out of the “More Options” list … which, since most of us were used to deleting email, was a pain. [...]

Sharewood Picnic is my weekly collection of new media resources and tools. In it you find the best new media tools and picks I run into every week during my daily research and explorations into the future of independent media publishing.
This week as before I have collected for you a great list of new media [...]

Many of the warped sites out there feature themes with the subject of the holiday season just past in mind. Some are pretty funny, some are pretty lame, and some, like today’s, are pretty risque. But in their own way, they are all full of, well, holiday cheer.
This site is called The Gag Report. It [...]

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:
We indicated earlier this month that Illinois was moving toward such a ban; now Sen. Charles Schumer (D, NY) along with Sen. Arlen Specter (R, PA) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D, FL) have introduced the Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act of 2006, which would create felony criminal penalties for stealing [...]

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:
This must be the week for health-related tech news. Yesterday we posted a story on the “Malaria Monitor“; today we have news of a disposable microchip under development by STMicroelectronics that can confirm a human case of bird flu. The hope is to have development complete before the next [...]

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:
Earlier David wrote an article about 3 great free Windows utilities. Those are all great, but they require one thing … a bootable PC. What happens if you can’t boot your PC, but have data you absolutely must get off it? Enter the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows [...]

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:
As you may recall, we earlier posted a story about Symantec’s use of rootkit-like features in SystemWorks. You may also recall that it received a lot of attention and comments, including a lot of discussion on was it a rootkit, what is a rootkit, etc., etc.
Symantec has started to back [...]

Yesterday we covered a device for your car that would play MP3’s directly from any USB flash drive. It makes sense after all - we all have tons of storage devices. What if you could just load some files and then play them from whatever storage medium you have lying around?
Read More about the jWIN [...]

I’m not a fan of stock analysts. In the crazy days of the dot com boom, they ran up the stock prices of awful stock that eventually collapsed the whole thing. Today, you don’t have to be tuned to Bloomberg News 24/7 to hear quotes about Google stock shooting to 600 (which of course means [...]

I love text messaging, but that’s because I use a BlackBerry with an actual keyboard - I know there are people who can tap-tap-tap their messages on a numeric dial pad, but it ain’t me, babe. But when I am the office or my laptop somewhere, I often wish I could just text a message [...]