News

Dec 28, 2007

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Feb 15, 2007

Parents not always able to decipher children's online lingo

By Maureen Kyle

(LOUISVILLE) -- Millions of people have been chatting in online chat rooms for more than a decade, and by now, just about everyone knows what "LOL" stands for. But what about TDTM or KPC? Even though kids started chatting online using acronyms years ago, we found most parents still don't know what they're saying. WAVE 3's Maureen Kyle quizzed a few parents and helped them to crack their kids' chat code.

The dangers entangled in the World Wide Web are accelerating as fast as Internet connections. And the language used by many of its younger users can seem foreign.

"Anything you need to say, there's an acronym out there for it," says detective Dan Jackman, with the Metro Crimes Against Children Unit. "Grammar doesn't count, spelling doesn't count online or in chat rooms. So they make up acronyms to say what they have to say and say it fast."

ASL, GPYO, and TDTM are just some of the words used in instant message and chat rooms and -- but not by most adults.

"The language, the vulgarity they talk about, it's just horrible," Jackman says. "If you go into one of these chat rooms and watch a real 12-year-old talk, they talk worse than a sailor."

Jackman says the topics are even worse. "They can have an entire conversation about sex, drugs, gangs -- anything they want -- right in front of their parents, and the parents have no clue what's going on."

We gave some parents a pop quiz to see if they've caught on to this developing language. Of the 16 acronyms we showed them, the moms were able to guess the meaning of three.

"I think we underestimate how much smarter they are than we are," says Mary Melchior, a mom with children who chat online.

"Were you shocked at all?" I asked Suzy Mackowiak, another mom. "Not really," she replied. "It was surprising and disappointing."

The moms we spoke with told us they carefully monitor their children's use of the Internet, and don't believe their kids get into chat rooms.

"I know mine aren't, because they're not allowed without my assistance and it's homework only," says Mackowiak.

"I argue with my husband about the computer being in the living room, and he says he (my son) needs to do his homework and have privacy, and I said, no, not with the Internet part," says Kim Priest.

But they also admit their kids aren't under their constant watchful eye.

"The temptation is there because their friends are talking about how they've been on this site or that site and they're curious," says priest.

"(There tends) to be parents who stay on top of things, and then you hear these stories and you hope they don't come into your own home," says donna burry.

Our pop quiz was a harsh lesson to learn, but it was a necessary one, Jackman says, because parents shouldn't have to learn the hard way that they're the first line of defense against the dark side of the Internet.

"Parents -- regardless of what filtering Internet software you go out and get, the number one protector is parents."

How savvy are you to acronyms your child may be using when chatting online? Take our online quiz and find out. If you don't know the answer, use one of the websites below to find the corresponding meaning.

More on the Web:
www.netlingo.com
www.ag.ky.gov/cybersafety
www.ag.ky.gov/cybersafety/parents

Feb 9, 2007

Microsoft: Vista follow-up likely in 2009

Wow...they just released Vista and are already talking about it's replacement....LOL. Hopefully they get the bugs worked out of Vista first. Seems like lots of people having trouble just getting Vista to install on their computer.

With Vista just out the door, Microsoft is now drawing up plans to deliver its follow-up client operating system by the end of 2009, according to the executive in charge of building the product's core components.

That would be a much faster turn-around than Vista, which shipped more than five years after Windows XP, but Vista was exceptional, said Ben Fathi, corporate vice president of development with Microsoft's Windows Core Operating System Division this week at the RSA Conference in San Francisco.

Microsoft originally planned for its XP follow-up to include a number of radical changes to Windows, including a new file system and a reinvented user interface, but after the company's products were hit by widespread worm outbreaks in 2003, Microsoft redirected almost its entire engineering effort to locking down Windows with the XP Service Pack 2 release.

"We put Longhorn on the back burner for awhile," Fathi said. "Then when we came back to it, we realized that there were incremental things that we wanted to do, and significant improvements that we wanted to make in Vista that we couldn't deliver in one release."

Vista shipped about two-and-a-half years after XP SP 2, and Vista's follow-up is expected to take about the same amount of time, according to Fathi. "You can think roughly two, two-and-a-half years is a reasonable time frame that our partners can depend on and can work with," he said. "That's a good timeframe for refresh."

That time line would put Microsoft's next client operating system out by the end of 2009.

Last year, Microsoft said that the code name for this Vista follow-up is Vienna, but Fathi said he could not disclose the current name. "We've been told not to use it publicly," he said.

So what will be the coolest new feature in Vienna?

According to Fathi, that's still being worked out. "We're going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe its hypervisors, I don't know what it is," he said. "Maybe it's a new user interface paradigm for consumers."

"It's too early for me to talk about it," he added. "But over the next few months I think you're going to start hearing more and more."

Jan 24, 2007

Microsoft Announces Extended Support for Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Media Center Edition

Microsoft adds the Extended Support phase to two consumer products, providing customers with an additional five years of support.

REDMOND, Wash. — Jan. 24, 2007

Who: Microsoft Corp.

What: Today, Microsoft is announcing the addition of an Extended Support phase for the Windows® XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition operating systems, providing consumers with an additional phase of support.

With the addition of Extended Support, the support life cycle for Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition will include a total of five years of Mainstream Support (until April 2009) and five years of Extended Support, matching the support policy provided for Windows XP Professional.

The Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy standardizes Microsoft® product support policies for business and developer products as well as for consumer, hardware, multimedia and Microsoft Dynamics™ products.

When: Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007, 6 a.m. EST

Jan 15, 2007

Flaws Are Detected in Microsoft’s Vista

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 24 — Microsoft is facing an early crisis of confidence in the quality of its Windows Vista operating system as computer security researchers and hackers have begun to find potentially serious flaws in the system that was released to corporate customers late last month.

On Dec. 15, a Russian programmer posted a description of a flaw that makes it possible to increase a user's privileges on all of the company's recent operating systems, including Vista. And over the weekend a Silicon Valley computer security firm said it had notified Microsoft that it had also found that flaw, as well as five other vulnerabilities, including one serious error in the software code underlying the company's new Internet Explorer 7 browser.

The browser flaw is particularly troubling because it potentially means that Web users could become infected with malicious software simply by visiting a booby-trapped site. That would make it possible for an attacker to inject rogue software into the Vista-based computer, according to executives at Determina, a company based in Redwood City, Calif., that sells software intended to protect against operating system and other vulnerabilities.

Determina is part of a small industry of companies that routinely pore over the technical details of software applications and operating systems looking for flaws. When flaws in Microsoft products are found they are reported to the software maker, which then produces fixes called patches. Microsoft has built technology into its recent operating systems that makes it possible for the company to fix its software automatically via the Internet.

Despite Microsoft assertions about the improved reliability of Vista, many in the industry are taking a wait-and-see approach. Microsoft's previous operating system, Windows XP, required two “service packs” issued over a number of years to substantially improve security, and new flaws are still routinely discovered by outside researchers.

On Friday, a Microsoft executive posted a comment on a company security information Web site stating the company was “closely monitoring” the vulnerability described by the Russian Web site. It permits the privileges of a standard user account in Vista and other versions of Windows to be increased, permitting control of all of the operations of the computer. In Unix and modern Windows systems, users are restricted in the functions they can perform, and complete power is restricted to certain administrative accounts.

“Currently we have not observed any public exploitation or attack activity regarding this issue,” wrote Mike Reavey, operations manager of the Microsoft Security Response Center. “While I know this is a vulnerability that impacts Windows Vista, I still have every confidence that Windows Vista is our most secure platform to date.”

On Saturday, Nicole Miller, a Microsoft spokeswoman, said the company was also investigating the reported browser flaw and that it was not aware of any attacks attempting to use the vulnerability.

Microsoft has spent millions branding the Vista operating system as the most secure product it has produced, and it is counting on Vista to help turn the tide against a wave of software attacks now plaguing Windows-based computers.

Vista is critical to Microsoft's reputation. Despite an almost four-and-half-year campaign on the part of the company, and the best efforts of the computer security industry, the threat from harmful computer software continues to grow. Criminal attacks now range from programs that steal information from home and corporate PCs to growing armies of slave computers that are wreaking havoc on the commercial Internet.

Although Vista, which will be available on consumer PCs early next year, has been extensively tested, it is only now being exposed to the challenges of the open Internet.

“I don't think people should become complacent,” said Nand Mulchandani, a vice president at Determina. “When vendors say a program has been completely rewritten, it doesn't mean that it's more secure from the get-go. My expectation is we will see a whole rash of Vista bugs show up in six months or a year.”

The Determina executives said that by itself, the browser flaw that was reported to Microsoft could permit damage like the theft of password information and the attack of other computers.

However, one of the principal security advances of Internet Explorer 7 is a software “sandbox” that is intended to limit damage even if a malicious program is able to subvert the operation of the browser. That should limit the ability of any attacker to reach other parts of the Vista operating system, or to overwrite files.

However, when coupled with the ability of the first flaw that permits the change in account privileges, it might then be possible to circumvent the sandbox controls, said Alexander Sotirov, a Determina security researcher. In that case it would make it possible to alter files and potentially permanently infect a target computer. This kind of attack has yet to be proved, he acknowledged.

The Determina researchers said they had notified Microsoft of four other flaws they had discovered, including a bug that would make it possible for an attacker to repeatedly disable a Microsoft Exchange mail server simply by sending the program an infected e-mail message.

Last week, the chief technology officer of Trend Micro , a computer security firm in Tokyo, told several computer news Web sites that he had discovered an offer on an underground computer discussion forum to sell information about a security flaw in Windows Vista for $50,000. Over the weekend a spokesman for Trend Micro said that the company had not obtained the information, and as a result could not confirm the authenticity of the offer.

Many computer security companies say that there is a lively underground market for information that would permit attackers to break in to systems via the Internet.

By JOHN MARKOFF

Jan 14, 2007

Petition to revoke the independence of the United States of America

God this is funny. I would love to give credit but I have no idea who wrote it.

Anyway, its a laugh in a currently depressing world so read it with a smile!

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories.

Except Utah, which she does not fancy.

Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair MP, for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the need for further elections.

The House of Representatives and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'; skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters.

You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise."

You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary." Using the same thirty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "uhh", "like", and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

Look up "interspersed."

There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary, then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier).

You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents --- Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.

While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters.

British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humor of occasional political incorrectness. Popular British films such as the Italian Job and the Wicker Man should never be remade.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football." There are other types of football such as Rugby, Aussie Rules & Gaelic football. However proper football - which will no longer be known as soccer, is the best known, most loved and most popular. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game.

The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.

Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies).

We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2008.

You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of North America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders," which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. The 4th of July is no longer a public holiday. The 2nd of November will be a new national holiday, but only in Britain. It will be called "Indecisive Day."

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humor.

10. You will learn to make real chips Those things you call 'French fries' are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat.

Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From the 10th of November the UK will harmonise petrol (or "gasoline," as you will be permitted to keep calling it until the 1st of April) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon -- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.

Jan 13, 2007

Your hard drive is now obsolete? Not yet but coming soon.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16545386
SanDisk's flash-based feat, plus CES's coolest gadgetry, big and small
By Gary Krakow
Columnist
Updated: 12:23 p.m. ET Jan 11, 2007

LAS VEGAS - Twenty years ago I got my first home computer. It was an Apple Macintosh that someone had
modified. They had installed a third-party device called a hard drive, which meant that the computer didn’t need floppy disks to boot up. Those early hard drives were large in size, wildly expensive and had storage capacities in megabytes....not gigabytes.

The rest, as they say is history. Over the years, hard drives have gotten smaller in size, bigger in capacity and a whole lot cheaper. A one-terabyte (1,000 gigabyte) drive was announced here at CES this week.

But mechanically, hard drives haven’t changed much over the years. They still have a lot of moving parts. And, as I can report from personal experience, at some point, all hard drives fail. These are not pleasant memories.

So, when I saw one particular announcement at a show filled with press releases, I got very, very excited: SanDisk Corporation has introduced a 32GB, 1.8-inch solid-state drive (SSD) which is built to be a drop-in replacement for standard mechanical hard disk drives. This means the device has no moving parts.

Large capacity flash-based drives had been used primarily in the military, aerospace and telecom industries which demanded high performance, reliable storage under demanding conditions. But these drives were very expensive. Now, with flash-memory costs dropping, solid-state drives are becoming economically and commercially viable.

In addition to being reliable, these drives are fast. SanDisk claims a sustained read rate of 62 megabytes per second and a random read rate of 7,000 inputs/outputs per second. In plain English, that means it’s more than 100 times faster than most current hard disk drives.

I can’t begin to tell you what this ultimately means for the computer, PDA, cell phone and portable music device industries. The only thing that might slow down SSD acceptability is the price. Currently, SanDisk’s 32GB SSD will sell for $600. But, I would expect that price will drop as more and more companies choose solid-state drives. A number of electronics manufacturers are currently in talks with SanDisk — although they wouldn’t yet disclose which ones.