Items tagged with file
If there's one thing you don't want to happen when you run a website, it's for Google to shun you. Or worse. Today, that "worse" bit happened to one of the web's largest hosts of image files, used extensively on websites and social media. TwitPic, for some odd reason, was picked up in the latest Google sweep of malware sites, which meant that each visitor to TwitPic was shown a fairly frightening message saying that continuing to the website could endanger their PC. That's obviously terrible for TwitPic, as these kinds of things can stir up the kind of negative stigma that's hard to shake. This evening, however, Google's weekend engineers managed to reverse the block, but we're still seeing it...
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Research in Motion isn't taking the year off. Despite BlackBerry 10 not being ready to launch until next year, the company is making news this week with a new partnership involving Microsoft. Microsoft has announced that both companies have inked a patent licensing agreement that gives RIM broad access to the latest Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) for certain BlackBerry devices of RIM. exFAT is a modern file system from Microsoft that facilitates large files for audiovisual media and enables seamless data portability and an easy interchange between desktop PCs and other electronic devices. exFAT improves on its predecessor, the FAT system, and greatly expands the size of files that flash...
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Good news for heavy Dropbox users that seem to always find themselves sorting the same type of files over and over again: the company has just launched Dropbox Automator, which does what it says. It'll automatically do whatever you want with a certain kind of file. In other words, the system is capable of triggering a series of actions based on what kind of file that you've added. They can be triggered by file type or by what folder they're dumped into. The options are fairly robust; for example, you can create an automatic option that converts a document to PDF, upload something to Google Documents, translate a foreign document, etc. Photos can even be automatically piped over to Facebook, and...
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The replacement of the MP3 has been coming forever, or so we've heard, but the ubiquitous file format has yet to really be toppled by anything else. Apple's AAC format is highly popular amongst iPod and iPhone users, but by and large, the de facto music format when it comes to digital is MP3. One has to assume that the format's run will end at some point, though, just as VHS and DVD runs ended when newer, larger and more clear formats were developed. Is this the end for MP3? Only time will tell, but a leading tech company is hoping to launch a new digital music file format that will add several features currently unavailable to MP3. Things like embedded lyrics/artwork would be included, but the...
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America’s third largest electronics retailer with 721 stores in the U.S. and 770 in Canada, has petitioned for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond. After losing money in five of the last six quarters and announcing last week it would close 155 stores, Circuit City is seeking bankruptcy protection amidst fears that it would not be able to pay its vendors. The company presently owes Hewlett-Packard Co.$119 Million and Samsung Electronics Co. $116 million.A deal earlier this year that involved Blockbuster Inc. buying the retailer fell through when a preliminary offer was withdrawn. "On Sept. 29, Circuit City reported a loss of $239.2 million that was more than triple from...
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Before you post photos of your night of drunken debauchery to your Facebook profile, you might want to consider what kind of impression it might make on prospective employers. And lest you think that baby-boomer-generation hiring managers wouldn't know Facebook if they tripped over it, think again: 22 percent of hiring managers say they research job candidates on social networking sites. It might seem like common sense for job hunters to keep their social networking profiles "clean," but hiring managers must not like what they are seeing, because 34 percent of those who research candidates on social networking sites "found content that caused them to dismiss the candidate from consideration."...
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VIA Pico-ITX Goes Low Profile, Integrates Power SupplyNew VIA EPIA P700 board features in-line I/O pin-headers and extended feature set including Gigabit LAN, S-ATA II and an integrated power adapter Taipei, Taiwan, 27 June 2008 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA EPIA P700 Pico-ITX board that couples more features within a streamlined, ultra compact footprint designed for low profile systems, with extended I/O port options through two companion boards. Now featuring native S-ATA II support, Gigabit LAN, and support for GPIO, SM bus and LPC devices, the 10cm x 7.2cm VIA EPIA P700 is based on the VIA VX700 unified...
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UPDATE: We heard back from Steve Swasey, Vice President, Corporate Communications for Netflix. Swasey explained that a "very, very, very small minority" of Netflix users actually use the Profiles feature. When we commented that he used the word "very" three times, he joked that a few more "very's" might actually be applicable. He would not comment, however, on what the actual percentage is of Netflix users who use Profiles. Swasey also pointed us to today's post on the Netflix Community Blog, where a Netflix product manager added the following salient comments: "Please know that the motivation is solely driven by keeping our service as simple and as easy to use as possible. Too many members found...
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One of the most requested new features for Apple's iPhone has been instant messaging. After all, e-mail is sort of old-fashioned to your average cutting edge phone phreak. Apple seems to be poised to offer IM, as it has filed a patent for a universal interface for real-time messaging. In normal use, users would continue to use the same bubble chat interface as with today's phone, complete with the ability to start new messages by searching through the contact list or typing the first few letters of someone's name. Users can also see a past chat history and remove individual conversations from the list.However, the patent also adds features not present in the current iPhone software. While one...
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The four major Japanese ISPs, under considerable pressure by movie, music and software industries, have agreed to take drastic action against file sharers.In 2006, a Japanese ISP decided to plan measures to stop their subscribers using file-sharing software, by tracking their activities and disconnecting them from the Internet. The plan didn’t come to fruition as the government stepped in and said that such monitoring might have privacy implications.Now, under huge pressure from the movie, music and software industries, the four major ISP organizations in Japan are at it again, and have agreed to take drastic action against online pirates.According to the report in Yomiuri Shimbun, the agreement...
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The parent company to such publications as Electronic Gaming Monthly and PC Magazine, Ziff Davis, has filed for voluntary Chapter 11 in order to restructure their debt. The decision to file was reached by a group of concerned investors as well as senior management.“Importantly, as part of the restructuring, the ad hoc noteholder group has agreed to set aside up to $24.5 million to fund the Company's operations during the Chapter 11 case as well as after the Company emerges from Chapter 11. These funds, together with the Company's current cash reserves and cash flow from operations, will be sufficient to fund its operations during the reorganization process. In addition, the restructuring,...
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Need to access older versions of certain Office files and suddenly can't? Did you install SP3?If you need to access old Microsoft file formats for early versions of Word, Excel, or Powerpoint -- but you've suddenly and dramatically found yourself unable to do so -- there's an intentional reason from Microsoft behind that conundrum, according to a bulletin put out by Microsoft last month.The reason for the unexpected incompatibility is that, by default, the SP3 update, which became available in mid-September, blocks the file formats used by these older desktop productivity tools from Microsoft.Moreover, the same also holds true for the file formats used in older versions of products that...
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What good is a file server if you can't store files on it? Uh, huh. Microsoft has posted a Knowledge Base article, KB946676, which warns of file corruption issues with Windows Home Server. "When you use certain programs to edit files on a home computer that uses Windows Home Server, the files may become corrupted when you save them to the home server," Microsoft said in a support document posted last week. The document went on to list the software, which includes Windows Vista Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, OneNote 2003, OneNote 2007, Outlook 2007, Microsoft Money 2007 and SyncToy 2.0 Beta. Others programs, however, may also corrupt files stored on a home server powered...
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A recent update to Quicken Pro is having an adverse effect on some Macs. By adverse effect, we mean that it's deleting non-Quicken related data on the desktop. Yes, the desktop, the same place that users often put data they're currently working on.“The update caused several Mac users to lose data from their Desktop folders, infuriating many who were hoping to close their books this week for 2007, only to lose valuable purchase orders and spreadsheets. This problem doesn't appear to affect those using QuickBooks on Windows PCs, but it does appear to be causing problems for both Tiger and Leopard users. The update apparently came along with a prompt that read, "there is not enough space...
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Western Digital is a big fan of text files, and assumes you are too. It has disabled the ability of its 1TB network-ready drive to share MP3, AVI, MPEGs... well, pretty much any audio or video file you could name. The "My Book World Edition" drive assumes the world is full of typists, I guess.Access to multimedia files is allowed only by the primary user registered on WD Anywhere Access, the remote desktop client embedded on the NAS device, said Brian Miller, director of marketing at Western Digital.Anywhere Access is based on the MioNet remote desktop client, which allows users to access, read, edit and share files on remote desktops. The Anywhere Access client allows remote users access...
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The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is dedicated to protecting open-source and free software, thus it comes as a bit of a surprise that they're filing suit against two U.S. Companies that are allegedly redistributing software in violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The two companies that are being sued are High-Gain Antennas and Xterasys.On the surface it might seem a bit odd that an organization dedicated to protecting software such as the GNU GPL are suing over it, but apparently the entire problem boils down to the defendants allegeldy not providing sufficient access to source code.“But Richard Bruckner, CEO of High-Gain Antennas, said the SFLC is mistaken about the...
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Minnesota has always been an interesting and often unpredictable state when it comes to politics and law. That's why a court case against 30 year old Jammie Thomas is certainly worth following.Thomas has been accused of sharing over 1700 songs via Kazaa. Things get interesting when she, along with numerous other Kazaa users, received a spam message (Wait, isn't that against the TOS?) that warned users of the file-sharing service that they were violating copyright law. So far this is nothing new, we've all heard this kind of story before.Things get interesting when you talk about the date the she allegedly received the TOS-violating spam, which would be 2/21/2005. Mrs....
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After years of legal battles with Novell and various Linux-related entities, SCO has officially filed for bankruptcy protection under Chatper 11. Adding insult to injury is that even had SCO won every single case in the Linux arena, it was recently ruled Novell owned the copyrights to most of the material SCO was suing others over in the first place.It doesn't look like SCO plans to go down without a fight. The Chapter 11 filing would seem to be the start of a major reorganization within the company rather than the final death spasm."We want to assure our customers and partners that they can continue to rely on SCO products, support and services for their critical business operations," Darl...
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Perhaps some of us remember that at around the same time a year ago, we heard about Google’s scheme to use a computer’s built-in microphone to listen-in on the TV shows that we happen to be watching and to use such information to connect us to websites of interest. Although the details were unclear at the time, a recent patent application has clarified a few things. "Imagine that you are watching the latest episode of Friends on television and discover that the character Monica is pregnant. You want to chat, comment or read other viewers' responses to the scene in real-time.""By eavesdropping, Google says it could offer you relevant websites automatically, perhaps even generating them on the...
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Sweden has convicted its first 'pirate' since the country made the downloading of music and movie files illegal in 2005. 45-year-old Jimmy Sjostrom was charged last October with infringing upon intellectual property rights when he allowed four music files to be shared from his computer. The penalty, a fine of a whopping 20,000 Swedish crowns ($2,843), is being seen by the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) as a victory in their war against file-sharing. The verdict only concerns four songs and it costs the one sentenced about 20,000 crowns in fines -- that is 5,000 crowns per song," IFPI said in a statement. "Illegal file-sharing...
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The RIAA has launched a fresh wave of 8000 lawsuits against alleged file-sharers world wide. This brings the total to more than 18,000 in the US and another 13,000 world wide. In this most recent wave 17 countries were affected, including Brazil, Poland, and Mexico which had previously avoided lawsuits. The music industry claims they loose billions of dollars annually to music piracy and is determined to set an example by filing civil and criminal suits to stomp it out. To date approximately 2300 people have settled these suits in amounts averaging $3,000. LONDON (Reuters) - The music industry has launched a fresh wave...
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NVIDIA has yet to respond to the lawsuit filed by Scanner Technologies, in which they claim NVIDIA sold products based on a 3D BGA inspection system, used to ensure product reliability. Along with seeking undisclosed damages, Scanner Technologies is also going after preliminary and permanent injunctions, as well legal fees and court fees. "The complaint alleges that nVidia has sold and/or is presently selling throughout the United States infringing BGA devices that are covered by one or more claims of the Scanner Patents. The complaint also alleges that nVidia has induced others to infringe. These BGA devices are a component in graphics cards,...
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