Filed under: Utilities, Windows, P2P

Share

uTorrent 3.0 features live streaming video and uTorrent Web, works with iPad and Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: iPad

We've mentioned GTD app Nozbe a few times before, but not since the release of their iPad app. If you're looking for a complete, easy-to-use task management app for your iPad and haven't checked it out, here's your kick in the pants to take a look.

Nozbe was originally a web-based application (still is), and creator Michael Sliwinski (also editor of Productive! magazine) has continued to develop amazing features into the web version. One of the more recent developments was Evernote integration, where you could tag projects in Nozbe with tags used on notes in Evernote, and have your Evernote notes show up when viewing projects in Nozbe. The latest version of the iPad app includes this functionality, along with improved file attachment handling.

The Nozbe iPad app is a full-fledged task manager which doesn't require a subscription to the web app to be fully-functional. In my opinion, though, the online synchronization and ubiquitous availability of your tasks on any platform is a major part of the appeal of this application. The iPad app is easy to use and easy to understand, offering full GTD compliance while not inundating you with choices and options that just make task management too complex. There's a version of Nozbe for iPhone as well, and they all sync together via the web application.

Among the many features of Nozbe that impress me are the myriad ways of getting tasks into your lists. From Twitter to plain text import, email, Dashboard widgets and, of course, the iPhone and iPad apps, finding a method that fits your workflow is an easy task. For the geeks, there's even an API that's pretty well fleshed out, allowing you to create your own means of adding tasks, checking them off, managing projects and more. I do long for a Mac desktop app, but I'm finding plenty of ways to make it just as easy to use the web version, and discovering that there are benefits to "working in the cloud" when it comes to task management.

If you're just interested in the iPad app, pick it up on the App Store for $14.99US, and check out the iPhone version for $4.99US. Subscriptions to the web version start at $7.50 per month (if you prepay a year). You can have a go at the free trial, too, and see if it's a good fit for you.

TUAWNozbe for iPad 1.1 integrates Evernote with your projects originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

After the recent leak of a Android 2.2 (Froyo) test firmware for the Samsung Galaxy S, people have been wondering when the official firmware release would be out. But thanks to SamsungUKMobile's Twitter account, we can now expect it in September.

Remember though, this is for the international Galaxy S, and not for any of the US variants. The TouchWiz UI on the Galaxy S isnt as deeply integrated compared to other customized Android user interfaces,which makes updates like Android 2.2 Froyo easier for Manufacturers to roll out.

The Galaxy S is a great device, and I cant wait to see what else Samsung plans to package in the upcoming Froyo update. It cannot get here fast enough.

[Via: AndroidGuys]

Samsung Galaxy S receiving Android 2.2 (Froyo) in September is a post from: ZOMGitsCj.com

Related Posts:

• Android v2.2 Froyo for the Samsung Galaxy S leaked?
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: The Android Market
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: Web Browsing
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: Swype and Text Input
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: Camera Samples & UI

Samsung is getting really serious about their Galaxy S line, with the international Galaxy S version already doing great, the four US variants, and a confirmed Android tablet called the Galaxy Tab coming soon.

Apparently Samsung recent went to developers and asked them to prepare their apps to run perfectly on their new Android tablet. Samsung contacted the Plex6 team about their Magic 8 Ball app, since it wasn't rendering properly on the 7 inch display of the Samsung Galaxy Tab:

Dear Plex6 Team,
We would like to preface this email with Samsung's enthusiasm to give Mobile
device users enhanced Application experiences. Samsung Electronics is
committed to making Mobile and Tablet PC spaces comfortable and enjoyable
ones and your support for this would be highly appreciated by Samsung
Electronics.
It has come to our attention that your application [Magic 8-Ball] submitted
in the Android Market returns following error(s) when operated on our soon
to be released Samsung Android Tablet PC.
Please find the error(s) occurred on Samsung Android Tablet PC below.
Application does not properly display on Samsung Android Tablet 7inch
screen (600X1024/WSVGA) and draws a black background around the application
due to Compatibility-Mode display.

Please modify and adjust your application so that it would support the best
possible display on the Samsung Android Tablet device screen
(600X1024/WSVGA).
This will ensure your application to provide a consistent environment across
all devices and that you can deploy to any new devices that offer different
screens in the future.
**
Samsung Electronics is focused on strengthening its Android device line-up,
therefore, our mutual efforts on each application will be beneficial for
both parties.

W00t! Seems like Samsung is trying to make sure that their Galaxy Tab is just as awesome as their Galaxy S lineup. Now if we could only get some confirmed specs on this thing.

[Via: Phandroid]

Samsung asks Developers to prepare Android apps for Galaxy Tab is a post from: ZOMGitsCj.com

Related Posts:

• Samsung Galaxy S receiving Android 2.2 (Froyo) in September
• Samsung Galaxy Tab Android Tablet Confirmed, Seen in the Wild
• Android v2.2 Froyo for the Samsung Galaxy S leaked?
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: The Android Market
• Samsung Galaxy S Review: Web Browsing

Awhile back, we did a review and giveaway of WaveSecure, an app that allows you to remotelyloss and theft of your Android device. Now, tenCube, maker of WaveSecure, is set to be acquired by McAfee.

According to the official announcement on McAfee's website, they say that the acquirement is set to:

• Further establish itself as the leader in mobile security with the most complete set of mobile technologiesMcAfee now has the technology needed for users and their families to locate, lock, encrypt, protect against malware, wipe, filter, manage, back-up, restore and access their data online
• Leverage its expertise at the endpoint and in the cloud to broaden its existing mobile security portfolio beyond anti-malware, data protection, Web security and family protection
• Expand the addressable device market with best-in-market mobile device platform support, including a wide range of mobile operating systems including Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone and Java powered feature phones
• Combine the skills and resources of both companies to develop and deliver scalable solutions through global partnerships with mobile service providers and mobile device manufacturers
• Expand the breadth of its device management solutions available for enterprise IT administrators to implement policies, assist users and enforce compliance for mobile applications across the enterprise

Darius Cheung, chief executive officer of tenCube, has commented on the acquisition, saying Mobile devices have become an extension of our lives. Through this acquisition, McAfee can broaden its security capabilities and offer users protection and remote control of the phone whether it is in their possession or not. This means no more worries about the whereabouts of your phone or losing personal contacts, photos or messages.

The procedure is on track to be complete by the end of August. What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.

[via McAfee]

For more information on Android and the current Android mobile phones, check out our Android Guides

McAfee acquires tenCube, makers of WaveSecure

Filed under: Gaming, Mac

TUAWValve to release GL code, games on Mac see sales bumps originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

WordPress is a powerful content management system, and its popularity as a portfolio solution is enticing to many. There are a lot of themes out there that claim to do the job, but if you're as picky as me you'll find some pretty annoying flaws in many of them.

In my search for the best of the bunch, I installed about 30 offerings (out of the hundreds I looked at) and after trying them out and changing my mind a couple of times I finally settled down with a theme. This took me months, so I'm going to save you the bother and present the five free Wordpress portfolio themes that made my own particular shortlist.

SimpleFolio The Best All-Rounder

Despite being a tricky free WordPress theme to set-up, SimpleFolio by Omar Corrales is worth the hassle. For your troubles you'll get a clean and easy-to-navigate theme with a separate portfolio section (with the option to exclude portfolio posts from your blog) and a home screen to die for.

The home screen includes a JavaScript front-page slider to exhibit portfolio entries, which does a great job of making your work look awesome with its smooth transitions. There are a further three widgetized areas on the home page, so adding a contact form or Twitter plug-in is as easy as pie.

If you like the look of this theme and fancy giving it a go, then you're going to need a little help. There's a fantastic little guide over at WordPress Handyman which guides you through the ins and outs of setting up and maintaining your new portfolio. As always with WordPress, you can edit the style.css file to suit your personal tastes.

Vikiworks Infinity For Social Media Types

For an aesthetically pleasing, majorly customizable portfolio that's plugged in to Flickr, Twitter and Delicious, look no further than Infinity by Vikiworks. The free WordPress theme follows a three-fixed column style, and whilst not being widget ready could probably be modified with some serious Notepad'ing.

There are two PSD files to download as well as the theme, which makes customization in Photoshop that little bit easier. Blog posts themselves are presented in two thumbnail cover-style columns to the left of the page, so if you're not bothered about separating your work and your blog then this one's for you.

For the more courageous there's a sister theme called Mashup based on Infinity, only with widgets and a style switcher. The developer has appealed for help in completing it, and needs guinea pigs willing to give it a go. If you're not averse to beta testing, you can download Mashup here.

FolioGrid For Speed-Freaks, Designers, Photographers & Artists

This sharp looking offering from FrogsThemes has a little something for everyone. Utilising the tried-and-tested grid layout, the theme comes in a variety of colours and is easily altered with some handy CSS. All the styling is done through the theme's stylesheet, meaning you really can open up and customize this one.

The menu lives at the top of the page, and is always accessible from anywhere on the site, making it a cinch to navigate. There's some lovely use of jQuery for slick transitions, and the theme is widget-ready. For a fast and lightweight WordPress portfolio, FolioGrid does the job.

Fullscreen For Style-Conscious Photographers & Videographers

If photos are the order of the day then you may want to pay close attention. Fullscreen is a portfolio package developed by Graph Paper Press that delivers nothing but a menu and blog posts (represented by just images). It all makes for a very sexy looking clean interface, with some fancy JavaScript image rollover effects for added garnish.

One thing to look out for is some issues with the menu not displaying correctly in older versions of Internet Explorer, though some of you won't really care (and those that do can customize, of course).

Images can be implemented into posts using the WordPress media gallery, which makes for easy posting. If you want your photo or video work to be the main focus of your site, then this theme will honour your wishes.

Contrast The Black Sheep

SmashingMagazine once hosted a typographic layout competition for WordPress and Tumblr themes, and Paul Linder's Contrast didn't win. But that doesn't matter, because it's awesome all the same.

Using nothing but XHTML and CSS, it's lightning quick and beautiful to look at. Presenting you with a straight-up black and white home screen, Contrast is designed to be left as a portfolio rather than a blog as well.

As the focus is on text, many writers, copy-editors or web designers may find this appealing, though the minimalist design could suit anyone. It's bold, unique and quick.

Have you used any of these free WordPress themes? Got another favourite we've not featured here? Spread the word in the comments! Are you a photographer? Check out our very own photography PDF manual by Bakari The Essential Guide To Digital Photography.

• How To Use A Self-Hosted WordPress Blog For Project Management (23 comments)
• Create A Professional Photography Portfolio Online In 5 Minutes With Pullfolio (7 comments)
• 3 Reasons To Keep Twenty-Ten Theme On Your New Wordpress Blog (4 comments)
• [Google Picasa 101] Saving, Exporting & Uploading To Picasa Web Albums (9 comments)
• [Google Picasa 101] Master The Special Effects In Picasa (18 comments)
• [Google Picasa 101] How To Edit Your Photos (17 comments)
• WordTwit Slick Wordpress Plugin For Twitter Integration (4 comments)
• Wordpress.tv The Best Wordpress Tutorials Ever! (14 comments)
• WordPress vs. Drupal Content Management Systems (40 comments)
• Wordpress Exploit Scanner Helps Administrators Scan Their Database For Malicious Files (14 comments)

Source: Slacker Radio Press Releases (http://www.slacker.com/company/pressreleases.jsp)

Ki Mae Heussner / ABCNEWS:
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Talks to Diane Sawyer as Website Gets 500-Millionth Member Zuckerberg Says New Movie is Fiction;' Claims He Never Agreed to Share Facebook Ownership If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest one in the world.

Disney has released the newest trailer for TRON: Legacy at Comic-Con, and it's spreading around the web like wildfire.

TRON: Legacy is the much-anticipated sequel to Tron, the 1982 classic that follows hacker Kevin Flynn's journey into the virtual world of the ENCOM mainframe. Jeff Bridges is reprising his role as Flynn in the sequel, which is due to be released on December 17, 2010.

This trailer not only shows off the cutting-edge, techno-style special effects that make the world of TRON; it also dives deeper into the storyline and the relationship between Bridges' character and his hacker son Sam Flynn (played by Garrett Hedlund). Comic-Con attendees got an extra bonus, though: eight full minutes of footage from the upcoming film.

The film trailer has been a hot item around the web. The movie wins nostalgia points with children of the eighties, and it also wins the hearts of technology and computer geeks. After seeing this trailer, we're more excited than ever for this film.

What about you: Are you excited? Are you planning on going to see the film later this year? Let us know what you think in the comments, but please, no reaction videos.

More About: entertainment, f, Film, movie, movie trailer, TRON, tron legacy

For more Entertainment coverage:

• Follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Entertainment channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

We've already brought you ways to share music on Twitter, but the solutions below will help you share the spoken word. Whether you want to sing happy birthday to someone, rant, or make a heartfelt apology, we've found five services that can help you out.

All the services we've tested have three things in common they are all completely free, they don't require a phone (i.e. they are web-based solutions), and they are all easy to use. There are differences between them, so it's worth having a read through our experiences so you can see which would best suit your own needs.

1. Chir.ps

Chir.ps is a super simple way to broadcast your voice to your Twitter followers. After signing in with OAuth, it's just a matter of entering your name for your personalized Chir.ps page before you can get going on the recording side of things.

The on-screen recording is again, simple just authorize Chir.ps to use your computer's mic, hit one button to start, say your piece, and then hit stop. You can preview your recording and once you're happy with it, add text and then tweet it.

There's a slight delay before the tweet will hit your stream, and when it does Chir.ps will have added a shortened URL (like this: http://chir.ps/6hb) to your message which people can click through in order to hear your audio.

While still decent, the audio quality of Chir.ps did not seem as great as other services we used, but the site does offer a listen count, so you can see how many people have hit play, which we do like. Here's what your message will look like when people click through to Chir.ps:

2. AudioBoo

AudioBoo (because sound is social) offers an iPhone and Android app as well as an online service, but for the purposes of this article, it's the web-based offerings we're interested in.

Once you've signed in with OAuth and chosen your AudioBoo username, the online recording takes place in a pop out window, which also gives you the option to upload a common audio file.

If you record via the site, you can talk (or sing, or hum, or groan or whatever it is you want to do) for five minutes, after which you can preview your ramblings. Once you're happy, give the recording a title and AudioBoo saves it down into the Your Boos section of the site.

From here you can choose to share your audio to Facebook, get an embed code for it, or tweet it, which creates a short URL like this: http://boo.fm/b154817

AudioBoo's sound quality is good, but there's no way to see how many people have tuned-in to listen to your broadcast, although there is the capability to comment on Boos. This is what your Boo will look like:

3. Twaud.io

Twaud.io is another service that lets you both record online and upload files. Recording online is easy: Just sign in with OAuth, authorize use of your mic and you're good to go for a generous thirty minutes worth of record time, which is practically podcast length.

Just hit the record button, hit it again to stop, and then press play to review whatever it is you've just uttered. Once you're done on the same screen there's a box to enter up to 100 characters of text, then just press the Twaudio it! button and you're done.

Twaud.io's URLs are super short (http://twaud.io/ls4) and play automatically when someone hits the link. Those who listen to your recordings also get the option to download them, get an embed code, retweet them or comment on them, which is sent as an @reply to the creator.

Sound quality is good, and the site tells you how many listens you've racked up, which is also good for an ego boost. This is how your message will appear to others:

4. Chirbit

Chirbit doesn't offer OAuth sign-in as it's not designed solely for the microblogging service, but setting up an account is a pain-free process, all the same.

Once you're in, you can use the service to record up to two minutes of audio, as long as you've given the appropriate permission just by hitting the onscreen buttons. After you've listened back and decided you like what you hear, you can give the clip a title and then add it into a category.

The default category is a Chirbit and any casual users who are interested in occasionally using this as a social tool need not worry about the others (such as audiobook, joke, pickup line), which are designed to help the Chirbit community find content more easily.

To save your Chirbit, you hit send and it will then appear on your Chirbit homepage. To get sharing, hit the cog icon on your recording and the site gives you the option to post it to Facebook or Twitter, making you a nice little shortened URL in the process. Here's one we prepared earlier: http://chirb.it/5LAfeM. And here's what viewers will see, which includes the option to respond:

5. ShoutoMatic

As well as offering a paid-for service where celebrities will record a message for you to tweet, ShoutoMatic also offers the infinitely more useful and free service of letting you record your own tweets.

Head on over to the site, either sign up for an account, or connect via Facebook, and you're ready to start shouting, as it were.

On the simple interface you just hit to record, review and save the clip. If you've signed in with Facebook it will prompt you to post it on there, but you can skip this bit.

After you've saved it, you can e-mail, download, post to Facebook or tweet your audio. If you tweet it, then Shoutomatic makes you a neat shortened URL (like http://bit.ly/ckvllv) and adds the text Check this out to your tweet, which obviously, you can choose to delete.

There is no listen counter on ShoutoMatic, but people are able to reply directly on your message page. Here's what anyone following the link to your message will see:

BONUS: Pockets

If you're in the United States, Pockets lets you send targeted voicemail to an individual Twitter user. As you will see in the video demo above, Pockets will call you and record your message, which is then sent as an @reply to the recipient who can click through to the Pockets website to listen.

More Twitter resources from Mashable:

- Top 20 Sites to Improve Your Twitter Experience
-10 Ways to Share Music on Twitter
- Twitter to Facebook: 5 Ways to Post to Both
- HOW TO: Create Custom Twitter Backgrounds
- HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags

[Img credit: Pixey]

More About: audio, AudioBoo, chir.ps, Chirbit, how to, how tos, pockets, shoutomatic, social media, Twaud.io, twitter, twitter tools, voicemail

For more Social Media coverage:

• Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Social Media channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Remember the CrunchGear Geek Weekend series, where we attempted to show some fun stuff to do in various cities across the U.S.? Yeah, we kind of let that peter out, didn't we? Also, there are lots of great non-geek things to do in and around cities. This is especially important for families: the kids might be more interested in Tecumseh! than the early television museum. With the A Day's Outing website, and now its new iPhone app, you can quickly find all sorts of interesting things to do.

This is a super simple app, and provides a nice front end to the website. You plug in what kind of activities you want to see, a date range (today, this weekend, next 7 days), and define a range (5 miles, 30 miles, 60 miles, etc). The app will query the A Day's Outing site and return a list of things going on. You can toggle between list view and map view, and you can get driving directions to any destination you select.

If you don't have an iPhone, you can simply use your smartphone's browser to access the website to get the same functionality: it'll just involve a bit more scrolling around on the page.

I like the presentation of this app. I find it calming. It's simple and uncluttered. My only gripe is that the back button is a little too small for my meaty fingers.

If you're making a cross-country road trip with your family, or just visiting in-laws for the weekend, A Day's Outing ought to let you find something interesting to do. It's only $3.

The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time and says it uses that information to predict the future.

The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine goes beyond search by looking at the invisible links' between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.

The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online momentum for any given event.

The cool thing is, you can actually predict the curve, in many cases, says company CEO Christopher Ahlberg, a former Swedish Army Ranger with a PhD in computer science.

Which naturally makes the 16-person Cambridge, Massachusetts, firm attractive to Google Ventures, the search giant's investment division, and to In-Q-Tel, which handles similar duties for the CIA and the wider intelligence community.

Many news outlets, including ReadWriteWeb reported yesterday that the first piece of Android malware may have been discovered in the wild. It now appears that we were mistaken. In an interview with Android Tapp Jackeey Wu, the developer of the wallpaper app in question, denied malicious intent. He said he was gathering device information to take advantage of favoriting features in Android.

Sponsor

In my applications I collected some device data, not user data. I collected the screen size to return more suitable wallpaper for the phone. More and More users emailed me telling that they love my wallpaper apps so much, because that even "Background" can't well suited the phone's screen.

I also collected device id,phone number and subscriber id, it has no relationship with user data. There are few apps in Android market has the favorites feature. Many users suggest that I should provide the feature so I use the these to identify the device, so they can favorite the wallpapers more conveniently, and resume his favorites after system resetting or changing the phone.

In a follow-up on its blog, Lookout, the security company that originally reported that the wallpaper apps were transmitting data, notes that the app did disclose that it was accessing phone data. However, not every app that accesses data actually transmits it off the device, and Wu's apps did not disclose that phone information would be collected (enterprises most certainly are not going to want employees voice mail passwords transmitted to third parties, regardless of that third party's intentions). Whether Wu himself knew he'd be collecting passwords along with users' phone numbers, we do not know. We have not been able to find a way to contact Wu.

We will update with additional information as it becomes available.

With a hat tip to Bruce Webster, more cartoons for the weekend, this time from Jonathan Rosenberg's Scenes from a Multiverse:

Selection bias and confirmation bias (both old favorites in these parts, especially in connection with people's estimates about who says what, how often, and how long they've been doing it), all in one four-panel strip. And then a well-known problem in hypothesis testing that arises repeatedly in reasoning about language:

In the starkly simple form here, this is: if X then Y; Y is true; therefore X is true. That's just affirming the consequent, which is invalid as a general line of inference. Of course, if you discuss alternatives to X and what follows from them, and if you flesh out predict as something more interesting than mere implication, and if you take into account what would make X false, then maybe we can talk.

OK, to start, let's get past the whole PC means personal computer so a Mac is a PC thing. I'm aware. But for the sake of argument and story-telling, I'm going to use PC to refer to a Windows-based machine, whether home built or from a manufacturer.

That said, I have to repent for a sin. Though actually I guess I'm just admitting, because repenting would lead you to believe that I plan on stopping. That's not the case.

That sin is lust, and the object is a Mac.

I came into this profession as a blogger wielding a plastic-bound Logitech keyboard and 24 inches of widescreen Dell. I was determined to be the one that didn't change. I was going to profess my love of Windows 7 and the world would know that I was typing every new entry while staring at the beauty of the 4-color Microsoft flag.

It's not really that I'm a Microsoft fanboy. In fact, I've used a wealth of different operating systems, and would move to a flavor of Linux if more of what I do with audio production were supported. But, that hasn't happened, so I've stuck with the old standard.

Conversely, I'm also not an Apple fanboy. I think that the iPhone is pretty, but I don't really want one. Apple TV is one of the most disappointing products I've ever seen and iTunes on a PC is the single worst piece of software I've ever been all-but-forced to use.

But then it happened.

I'm a slave to the number pad on my keyboard. I avoid the top row of numbers as if they're carriers of some highly infectious disease. Unless I'm playing a game, this row of digits is doomed to a solitary confinement, never to be graced by my tender touch.

One day, the 2 on my trusty Logitech bit the dust. Without warning or probable cause, it simply died. I was in shock. I knew that I should have bought two of the things when I got it, but I just neglected to do so. Disassembling the $20 thing was of no use, and they were out of stock at all but the most untrusted sources. I had to face the fact: it was time to buy a new keyboard.

I started my search across the vast keyboard wonderland that is Amazon, reading reviews and trying to decide what was right for me. Time after time, the most highly rated keyboards came from Logitech and Apple. In a moment that can only be described as fiscal insanity, I shelled out $50 for the Apple Aluminum keyboard. The one, of course, with the number pad.

The next day, as the keyboard arrived at my door, I was wary of even plugging the thing in. I carefully unboxed the device, making certain that I'd be able to return it if I didn't like it. I set it in place, plugged it in and typed my first sentence.

And then it happenedAs if in an instant, I suddenly began to understand.

From the first few words, I instantly knew that I was addicted. I had never before felt a piece of hardware that was more responsive. Typing with this newfound friend was like driving a sports car that answered willingly to my every touch. With light flicks across its chicklet-laden frame, I found myself typing faster and with less effort than ever before.

I was hooked. I needed to find out more.

The next instance of my unintended investigation came with the arrival of Ostrich. Being that I'm the editor of a channel entirely dedicated to applications, it was up to me to take a look at Ostrich and figure out if it was any good.

Only one problem: I used Chrome, and Ostrich was the first Twitter extension for Safari. Well, no harm done. I'll load up Safari for Windows and, give Ostrich its due time and then I'll be back to Chrome.

I'm guessing that you can already tell what's going to happen, so I'll spare you the details. I'll just say that I'm now firmly into my third week of using Safari and I have absolutely no plans of going back to Chrome or Firefox as of this time.

Why? Because Safari, for me, is justbetter. And that's the confusing part, honestly. I can't put my finger onto why it is that I like Safari better than Chrome. They're both Webkit-based and both run essentially the same, but after weeks of using Safari and dealing with a couple of initial frustrations, I keep getting the sense that the browser is more intuitive, more responsive and simplybetter.

And so here I sit, typing this missive on an Apple keyboard, using Safariin Windows 7. Why? Not for lack of desire, mind you. Simply for lack of funds. I've finally gotten to the point where I can justify in my mind the cost associated with owning a Mac, but my wallet doesn't seem to care what my mind thinks.

I now understand the cost. I now also understand why Mac enthusiasts shell out the money for them without a second thought. I've used a years-old Powerbook that still ran flawlessly. I've seen a friend who still has a Mac G4 Cube in daily service without a hitch. Why? It comes down to build quality, and Apple simply can't be beaten, in my PC-using opinion.

So there it is. 900-some words later and I've finally laid it out there for flames from both sides. So flame on, my Internet-anonymous friends. Don't mind me, I'll just be over scraping change out of the sofa cushions to add to my Macbook Pro savings account.

Original title and link for this post: Confessions of a Mac-lusting PC owner.

Social engineering is the (morally vague) art of tricking someone out of their company's technical secrets just by talking to them. It often involves deceit and relies on the fact that the weakest link in any computer security system is a human.

At the annual Defcon event, held in Las Vegas this week, attendees, mostly professionals in the computer-security business, engage in several contests. A new this one year involves launching social engineering attacks, where contestants must obtain the answers to questions about a company's security defenses. People working at big companies such as Google and Apple failed to realize they were being social engineered by con artists.

This year, about 20 Defcon attendees in Las Vegas participated in the contest, which stirred a lot of controversy. The organizers of the conference were three security experts who know how to do social engineering: Chris Hadnagy, (pictured top right) operations manager for Offensive Security; Mati Aharoni (pictured middle), trainer of Offensive Security, and Jim O'Gorman (pictured left) of Continuum Worldwide. They created the site www.social-engineer.org for the contest, which occurred for the first time this year at Defcon and runs through Saturday.

The contest has proved so alarming to the targeted corporations that some called on the help of the FBI, which quizzed the organizers on why they were doing the contest.

We wanted to start a social engineering program because we believe in security through education, Hadnagy said at a press conference at Defcon.

The participants were instructing to engage in passive information gathering to find out some sensitive information, such as where its dumpsters are located. (Dumpster diving is a common practice by hackers who want to find documents with company secrets on them). By looking things up on the Web, the participants tried to track down company details, such as what kind of Web browser the employees used and what version of Adobe PDFs they were using. (The answers to these questions can be used to launch cyberattacks against the companies.)

Tipped off by the announcement of the contest, the FBI met with the organizers ahead of time, and the organizers enlisted the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit civil-liberties advocacy group, to represent them. In that meeting the Justice Department voiced its concerns about whether any laws would be broken in the contest. The EFF offered legal advice about how to structure the contest; for instance, participants were not allowed to impersonate law enforcement officers during phone calls, as that is a crime.

In almost every case, company representatives gave up secrets they should not have. The companies targeted included Microsoft, Cisco, Apple, BP, Shell,Google, Procter & Gamble, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and Ford. The contestants were given flag points as rewards for each answer they pulled from employees.

Contestants cold-called employees to get the information. In three cases, company employees did not give any details over the phone. But the contestants, posing as journalists or customers, still got data from every company. One contestant managed to get an answer out of his target company in just 22 minutes. The contestant used tricks, such as preying upon emotions, by saying that they had to finish the project and get answers that day.

Because of publicity around the case, a number of contestants dropped out. Some said their bosses would fire them if they participated in the Defcon event.

Companies: Apple, BP, Google, microsoft, Offensive Security, Procter & Gamble

Casino giant Harrah's will bring its popular World Series of Poker (WSOP) to Facebook and MySpace in a new partnership announced with Playdom, which was just acquired this week for over $700 million by Disney.

In the deal, Playdom will relaunch its Poker Palace game as the official WSOP game, starting first on Facebook and then moving to other social networks.

WSOP's VP Craig Abrahams said in a press release, We will immediately start to work on enhancing the game, bringing unique WSOP promotions and sweepstakes into the offering and ensuring that the battle for WSOP virtual championship bracelets can become a Facebook-friendly endeavor.

The game will include, single table play money, virtual cash games and single-table tournaments featuring both full-table and short-handed play, and will only be played with play money. Users will also get a chance to enter sweepstakes that award prizes including trips to Las Vegas and seats to live WSOP events.

Original title and link for this post: Harrah's and Playdom to bring World Series of Poker to Facebook, MySpace

Julia Angwin / Wall Street Journal:
The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is the business of spying on consumers. First in a series. By Julia Angwin Hidden inside Ashley Hayes-Beaty's computer, a tiny file helps gather personal details

This spring at Twitter's first developer conference Chirp the big splash was a forthcoming feature called Annotations. The feature will allow publishing software to annotate Tweets with a wide open variety of metadata, which could then be read and analyzed by other software. Annotations are going to be big, if and when they launch.

At Chirp it was said that the Annotations feature would launch in the second or third quarter of this year. Now the company's developer advocate, Taylor Singletary, said today on the Twitter developers list that it's not going to work out that way. "We haven't yet announced a release date," he said in response to an inquiry, "and it's still a ways in the future while we tackle some other projects."

Sponsor

We've got an inquiry in with Twitter asking what that means, but it seems clear that the company is slammed with technical challenges, has other priorities and wrongly estimated the roadmap for this very important part of the platform. (Update: see below.)

Here's how Annotations will work. It will allow publishing software to mark-up tweets with any kind of characteristic or namespace (local weather when and where a twit did tweet, for example) and any kind of value - cloudy with a chance of meatballs, for example. Twitter messages are fairly rich with metadata already and incredibly easy to analyze and build on top of, but Annotations would open that up so far the sky's the limit.

It's worth mentioning that Twitter's unveiling of Annotations at Chirp happened around the same time as, and was widely compared with, Facebook's launching of personalized content widgets and tentacles expanding all over the web, among other things. Facebook shipped its announced project, for better or for worse.

Twitter is Busy

In another email on the same list today, Singletary said that the processing of white-listing applications to ping Twitter's servers with a production-level frequency was clogged with backlog, growing more critical in its evaluations and being re-evaluated.

Numerous advertising technologies have been rolled out since Chirp as well. Annotations is a hugely ambitious strategy, and the squabbling over namespaces and standards was one that Twitter said it was going to let the market work out on its own. That made some people quite unhappy.

We've asked Twitter for clarification on the revised Annotations roadmap and will update this post with the company's response.

Update: A Twitter spokesperson responded to our inquiry and said that yes, Annotations will launch. "We'll still launch Annotations. The team that was working on Annotations is currently focused on our number one priority, which is site stability." No doubt Annotations could themselves pose scalability challenges. They could at least blow our minds, if not a series of related servers.

Below is an image of what each Tweet looks like under the hood right now, before annotations. (Click for full size view.) Each of those fields is powerful, but inflexible and defined by the company. Imagine a new one that's open to being defined however a publishing tool sees fit. That's the vision behind Annotations.

It should be any entrepreneur's dream come true. But for some startups, a sudden, overnight explosion in growth can nearly bring the operation to its knees.

Such was the recent experience of Blank Label, a Web-based company that sells custom-made, user-designed dress shirts for men. After launching in October 2009, Blank Label enjoyed some modest initial success, selling a few hundred shirts in the first few months of business.

Sponsor

The online buzz generated by the startup's unique service was enough to capture the attention of The New York Times and other prominent media outlets, whose positive coverage in mid-May quickly sent a flood of new customers to their site. Immediately following the press coverage, Blank Label's Web traffic increased by about 4,000% overnight, and conversion rates nearly tripled.

For a brick-and-mortar store, a sudden influx of customers can result in long lines. Online, it can cause servers to go down.

The team knew there was a problem when they started receiving emails from would-be customers asking when their website was going to go back up, according to Tommy Wong, co-founder and lead evangelist for Blank Label.

"There were massive problems with the site," says Wong. "First images wouldn't load, then pages stopped loading."

They tried rebooting their web server, but found that the problems only accelerated. A few hours later, they moved their website to bigger, more capable server space.

The technical issues were only the beginning of the headaches.

Before long, it became apparent that the supplier they had hired to produce the shirts was unable to keep up with the sudden demand, despite assurances to the contrary. Orders started shipping late, sometimes with defects. Within a week of the initial influx, Blank Label switched suppliers.

A new payment processor was in order as well, because the one they had been working with was alarmed at the sudden and dramatic increase of orders and decided to end their relationship.

In addition to website stability and production issues, the company's owners found that customer service was becoming too much to handle. To keep up with the requests, the company had no choice but to hire three customer support staff members, as well as outsource some technical work via oDesk.

Another co-creation startup that experienced growing pains is a company specializing in custom-made chocolate bars called Chocri. For them, the scalability issues have been seasonal, as demand for co-created chocolate has typically peaked during the winter holiday season, causing Chocri to sell out of inventory two Christmases in a row. The overwhelming demand has required CEO Carmen Magar to make a number of changes, including expansion of staff, moving into a larger space and reassessing the company's production practices.

When they first started out, Chocri would produce the milk chocolate, dark chocolate and white chocolate candy bars separately and then recombine orders. "That's crazy when you make 50,000 bars a month," says Magar. "So now we make all types at the same time."

Today, things are mostly back on track at Blank Label and Chocri, although there is still a two-week delay on new orders at Blank Label.

"I always feel like there's more work to be done," says Wong, adding that his company is working on further streamlining the ordering process and hoping to speed up shipping times.

If he could offer any advice to budding entrepreneurs and small businesses, Wong says it would be to ensure upfront that technical infrastructure and production resources are prepared for potentially rapid growth.

When all was said and done, Wong's company had hired four new people, and switched suppliers, servers and payment processors in order to cope with their sudden success.

These days, all it takes is a mention in a few high-traffic news outlets or some social media buzz to bring tens of thousands of people to your company's door. As some entrepreneurs have learned the hard way, it quite literally pays to be prepared.

Disclosure: Tommy Wong of Blank Label has written guest posts for ReadWriteWeb in the past.

Filed under: App Review

Gallery: American Museum of Natural History Explorer app

TUAWThe American Museum of Natural History's Explorer app for the iPhone and iPod touch originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.