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Firefox on Windows 7 had been behaving...oddly. The app would simply stop working and exit to the desktop. Yet, parts of the Firefox kernel would remain in memory, making it impossible to restart the application without firing up Task Manager and manually killing the process. It happened a half dozen times a day. I was beginning to contemplate a browser change.

tomshardware

Tablet may be revolutionary, but it sounds like a feminine hygiene product

Given today's instant response to Apple's hotly anticipated, yet inexplicably named "iPad," one would think there are absolutely no women working in the upper echelons in Cupertino. And as a quick click on Apple's executive bios page reveals, one would be right. Still, as technology-entrenched as Apple's male monopoly may be, at least one guy must know a woman.

So why, Apple? Why? Why did you go with "iPad?" How could you not have seen this coming? "MADtv" saw it a couple of years ago when it satirized your MP3 player commercials — and that show's totally canceled! Maybe if a single employee, from Apple CEO Steve Jobs to the guy who fetches his lattes, was familiar with the former Fox sketch comedy show, the joke wouldn't be on Apple. But it is.

MSNBC

While women got knocked around, Coke and Budweiser shined as usual

Let the record show that 2010 was the year of older women being viciously tackled in Super Bowl commercials. It's about time: These old biddies have been getting away with far too much lately.

Of course until kickoff, 2010 was known as the Year of the Tim Tebow Pro-Life ad, in which the ex-Florida quarterback and his mom teamed to bring America a message funded by that conservative Christian fun bunch, Focus on the Family. The commercial was kept strictly under wraps until Sunday morning, when CBS released what turned out to be a rather timid, benign message which had Mrs. Tebow talking about her "miracle baby."

MSNBC

Starting in Q1 this year, all new hard drive models will contain the "big sector" footprint that Western Digital launched late last year with its "4k advanced format" 'EARS' drives.

After dropping Seagate a line to ask whether they were planning models on the new format to challenge WD, we were informed that the whole industry is behind the transition that is taking place right now. Good to know!

To quote Seagate PR directly: "International Disk Drive Materials and Equipment Association (IDEMA) have agreed that beginning January 1, 2011 all new product releases with SATA interfaces will support Advanced Formatted media."

The 4KB sector size is an advancement from the 512Byte sector size that all hard drives (as in, mechanical media) have adhered to for the longest time. The larger sector bring efficiency advantages because as the total size of drives increase, less sectors have to be used, and less ECC data overall has to be written, physical saving space. The downside is that there are issues of compatibility with older operating systems, however the drives will contain a "512B emulation mode" (at a performance loss) for the foreseeable future.

bit-tech.net

While it may seem that every week brings a new 'next big thing' in the world of batteries, this latest development in the world of portable power should have heads turning nonetheless.

As reported over on HotHardware, researchers at Imperial College London - in partnership with boffins at Volvo, interested in creating hybrid electric cars with better ranges - have come up with a plastic capable of storing a charge in much the same way as a traditional battery.

The so-called 'plastic supercapacitor' is an impressive leap forward in the concept of power storage, allowing the actual casing of a device to provide the power it requires to run. In the case of cars, this means non-structural elements such as the bumpers and interior spaces could provide additional power for increased range; in portable devices, the actual case itself could store the energy required to make the device work.

The technology could be used in portable gadgets in two ways: certainly at first it's likely to be as an additional power source, helping to make a more traditional Lithium-Ion or Lithium-Polymer battery last that little bit longer; once the technology has been sufficiently improved, however, it's possible that the battery can be dispensed of entirely - paving the way for thinner, lighter portable devices.

bit-tech.net

Until last month, I had a relic of a computer on which I used Windows XP Professional. I liked XP; I found it reasonably easy to use. Of course, I learned most of my computer skills on XP, so I admit that I am partial to it for that reason. When I replaced that computer, I purchased a Lenovo that came with Windows Vista installed and the promise of a free Windows 7 upgrade. My husband replaced his relic PC at the same time. We had heard terrible things about Vista, so we sent away for our free upgrades as soon as the computers were unpacked.
Immediate problems

The first problem we had with Lenovo's Windows 7 upgrade program is that it is not entirely free. We had to pay about $24 USD for materials (discs, I presume) and shipping for two upgrades. Alright, but why couldn't we just do a totally free download? I mean, Microsoft sells downloads of all their software, why not just give us a code for a free download? Of course, it's nice to have discs, and we still wanted our sort-of free upgrades, so we paid it.

Tech Republic

The Phenom II X2 is nothing more than a Phenom II X4 with two cores disabled. Originally these cores were disabled because of low yields, but over time yields on quad-core Phenom IIs should be high enough to negate the need for a Phenom II X2. This is most likely why AMD removed the Phenom II X2 from its official price list. It's also why the stranger Phenom II derivatives are also absent from AMD's price list. All that's left are Phenom II X4s pretty much.

anandtech

Two experimental add-ons, Version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader and all versions of Master Filer were found to contain Trojan code aimed at Windows users. Version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader contained Win32.LdPinch.gen, and Master Filer contained Win32.Bifrose.32.Bifrose Trojan. Both add-ons have been disabled on AMO.
blog.mozilla.com

Earlier this week, Net Applications released its findings on the most popular browsers in January. For the first time, Internet Explorer 8 took the top spot from Internet Explorer 6 with 22.31 percent market share. Internet Explorer 6 captured 20.07 share.

Excited to hear the news, Microsoft wrote a post on the company's blog late Tuesday touting the figures. The company indicated that it couldn't be happier to hear the results.

"We launched just less than a year ago, so it's both humbling and thrilling to see so many people choose our product so quickly--making it the most popular browser of choice worldwide," Microsoft communications manager Brandon LeBlanc wrote.

In Microsoft's blog post, the company pegged Internet Explorer 8 market share at a slightly higher 27.9 percent share. Microsoft lumped in IE 8 in compatibility mode with Net Application's Internet Explorer 8 figures. The research firm, on the other hand, broke out compatibility mode in its own tally.

After admitting it was humbled by the news that Internet Explorer 8 is already the world's top browser, Microsoft then examined why folks might have chosen its own browser over any other.

C|NET

TweakTown’s Solid State Drive Optimization Guide

In a recent TweakTown Poll you chose solid state drives as the second most exciting type of product that has hit the market. There is no doubt that SSDs have gained a lot of market share with enthusiasts and even mainstream notebook users, and 2010 is going to be a big year for the technology.
tweaktown

Not content with just recently launching its two P55 Big Bang boards: Trinergy and Fuzion, MSI has made its bang even bigger with the upcoming XPower.

While adorned in a distinctly MSI aesthetic, it looks like the engineers have been reading the EVGA manual on motherboard design. Despite the six PCI-Express x16 slots (it appears two x16, four x8), and sixteen DrMOS phases plus Hi-C(apacity) caps, the keen eyed among you will see the board has two 8-pin CPU 12V power connectors and one 6-pin PCI-Express connector, in addition to the usual 24-pin ATX connector. Hardcore indeed.

Using a standard X58+ICH10R chipset, it looks like there are two more DrMOS phases dedicated to the northbridge, and another two for the six memory slots as well. Additional features include the V-Check points, two digit LED readout, 'Quantum Wave' audio card with THX and EAX, SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0. The cooling design pictured is not final though, but it will include MSI's thicker 8mm "Superpipe".

MSI's roadmap has tied it into the release of Intel's Gulftown CPU, that it puts at somewhere close to the end of Q1 (March period).

bit-tech.net

What's the single most worrisome thing about the newly announced Apple iPad? It's not the lack of a physical keyboard, or that third-party applications can't multitask, or even the fact that people are still arguing that it's unclear whether there's a market for the thing. It's Apple's monopoly on distribution of applications. Absent jailbreaking -- and I'm curious to see if Apple has done anything to lock down the iPad even more than the iPhone -- this is a device that will run the software that Apple thinks it should run.

For lots of people, that's a dealbreaker on both philosophical and practical grounds. Last August, during the controversy over Apple's failure to approve Google's Google Voice app, I blogged about my unhappiness with the situation but also said I thought Apple would decide it was in its best interest to do the right thing with app approval in the long run.

PC World

The latest browser market share numbers are out and, judging by the headlines, Google is crushing the competition with the Chrome Web browser. Chrome is "on a roll", or even "skyrocketing" depending on the source.

You may be surprised to find that, behind the hyperbole, Chrome is the third place Web browser with a meager 5.2 percent market share. Chrome has only about one-fifth the market share of second place Firefox, and a miniscule one-tenth of the still-dominant Internet Explorer.

I am not sure that 5.2 percent and "skyrocketing" really go together. Chrome "jumped" almost six-tenths of a percentage point--a whopping six-hundredths of a percentage point more than the drop experienced by Internet Explorer.

PC World

Online Armor ++ Defeats Threats That Antivirus Apps Miss! Have you got a virus?

If you ever scanned your PC and find a virus you should asked yourself these three questions

• How did it get on there?
• When did it get on there?
• What damage has it already done?

Anti Virus software is reactive – it needs to know the virus before it can detect it.

Be Proactive – Get a Firewall!
However, if you had a top class firewall like Online Armor then you may never have needed to ask them in the first place. Online Armor controls what comes and out of your PC. Even if you download something yourself, Online Armor will know if it trying to access the internet or we will automatically block or allow it by referring it to our “white list” of known software’s and files. Either way you are in control and better protected.

Firewall and Anti-Virus in one Product
With Online Armor ++ you can have both. Online Armor is known to one of the best if not the best desktop Firewall’s available and so it made sense to combine it with a leading Anti-virus scanning engine provided by Emsisoft. As well as virus you will be able to scan, detect and delete Malware and Rootkits.


Online Armor ++ is usually 59.95 USD and for the next 24 hours you can get it Free
GiveAwayOfTheDay Active Giveaway time left: 10 hours 18 minutes

It may be unfortunate, but the reality of the situation cannot be denied - we live in a time where computer viruses, malware, spyware, Trojan horses, keyloggers, and other nefarious dangers are everywhere. Connecting a computer to a network, especially a network connected to the Internet, should never happen without at least the bare minimum of protections.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a decent anti-virus and anti-malware application available for free from Microsoft. It integrates seamlessly with the Windows operating system and takes up very little system resources. Installing Microsoft Security Essentials and running the required initial updates and configuration is relatively straightforward.

Tech Republic

Can an open-source application really change your life? To find out, we went looking for apps that users described as "indispensable."
What we found were tools that truly can help you significantly change the way you live or the way you use your computer every day. And as we put the list together, we noticed that a lot of these tools fall into categories that corresponded with some of the most popular New Year's resolutions.

itmanagement.earthweb

Once thought to be untouchable, the most secure system has been brought to its knees. Sony's PS3 has been cracked wide open with low level access and possible Cell master key retrieval. Also note, it is said that any hacked PS3 can run PS2 software! The exploit has been released to the world, looks like its only a matter of time to see what the rest of the scene does with this goldrush!

Read more HERE and from the hacker himself at his blog HERE, and finally from the Register.

"Just when everyone thought that dual-processor platforms for consumers were dead, EVGA, a well-known supplier of graphics cards and mainboards, revealed plans to unveil a motherboard for two microprocessors aimed at gamers with no limits in mind and budget."

@ XbitLabs

The hackers who stole and published 33 million passwords from the Rockyou.com website in December needn't have bothered, a security company has revealed. Many of them were so trivial they could have been guessed anyway.

According to a new analysis of the hacked passwords, the most popular password used on the Rockyou site was '123456'. Ridiculously, the second most popular password was '12345' closely followed (in order) by '12345687', 'Password', 'iloveyou', 'princess', and the imaginative 'rockyou'.

To put the use of '123456' into perspective, it was used on 290,731 accounts out of the nearly 33 million, which sounds small until Imperva reveals that the top 20 passwords were all equally transparent, and around 20 percent of the 5,000 most popular passwords were "names, slang words, dictionary words or trivial passwords." In 20th place, 13,856 accounts secured themselves with the word 'QWERTY'.

PC World