Transportation Security (?) Agency Exposes Data

OK, TSA stands for Transportation Security Agency, yet they managed to expose the personal data of 1,195 former employees … one of their contractors may have mailed that information to the wrong addresses.

Accenture, a contractor that handles TSA personnel, sent 1,195 documents to the wrong former employees during a recent mailing, according to a letter signed by Richard Whitford, TSA assistant administrator for human capital. Source: USA Today

Really, Accenture is to blame here, not the TSA, but let’s face it, who can pass up an opportunity like this, right?

Tags: Security, TSA, Homeland Security

Want a Free Windows Vista Upgrade? Buy Media Center Edition

According to DigiTimes, Apple Daily reports that buyers of PCs with Windows XP Media Center Edition will be able to update for Vista for free, while buyers of “regular” XP editions will have to pay … only 10% of PCs shipped in Q4 2006 will have MCE, so that’s a lot of paying.

Microsoft has informed PC makers that free upgrades to Vista will only be available for MCE users, the paper said. For Windows XP users, upgrading to the entry-level version of Vista will cost US$116, wile upgrading to the premium version will cost US$269, noted the paper. The cost may affect PC demand through the first quarter of next year, PC makers were quoted by the paper as saying. Source: DigiTimes

I found this news strange since the retailers I looked at charge more (over $100 more) for a system with XP Professional as opposed to XP MCE. On the other hand, if you buy MCE retail it looks like you can find it for around $20 more than XP Pro.

Tags: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Media Center Edition

iPod Thefts … Why Doesn’t Apple Help?

Here’s an interesting article which brings up some good points. When Apple sells you a song through iTunes, they know exactly what iPod was connected through iTunes … or at least the serial number. So, if you report your iPod as stolen, and someone then connects it and enters (correct) billing information for iTunes, why can’t Apple report that information to the police?

Here’s a site, StoleniPods.com that has a lot of that information on it. That site is interesting since there are posts from victims as well as a mailing list you can join “in case” anything changes in the future.

This type of tracking would be cool … sorta LoJack-ian in nature. Do I think Apple will do it? Not really. It’s a lot of overhead for them, and why not promote sales of new iPods to users who lost their devices?

Tags: ipod, itunes, apple

Healthy Meal Website Created by National Restaurant Association

Apt timing. On a day when AP writes a story on obesity threatening the entire world (which it is!), ABC News has a story on a website which was created by the National Restaurant Association. The website, Healthy Dining Finder is unfortunately, really slow … at least at the time of this writing. This can probably be attributed to its current beta status.

The National Restaurant Association is building a Web site that will provide a hefty list of healthy meals and restaurants across the country where they can be found.

The site is collecting nutritional information on the four to 10 healthiest dishes at restaurants in a community. Users can punch in their town or ZIP code and search for restaurants by cuisine or price range. It is already available for preview, but a formal launch with more than 10,000 restaurant listings is scheduled for January. Source: ABC News

Yep, it sure is beta. It took a loooong time to load the main page, and when I tried to search, I received a 404 Page Not Found error in return. Still the main page was “pretty” (ha, ha), and if this eventually does what it promises it will be cool.

Tags: Health, Restaurant, Internet

CA Antivirus Software IDs Windows Component as Malware

It’s not uncommon to see false positives in AV and anti-spyware software … for example, McAfee IDing Excel as a virus, Microsoft Anti-Spyware IDing Norton Antivirus. ‘Course, that doesn’t give companies an excuse. And IDing part of Windows as malware … now that’s even more inexcusable than IDing Excel.

The problem was that eTrust Antivirus was mistakenly flagging the Windows Lsass.exe process, said Bob Gordon, a CA spokesman. “CA quickly discovered and fixed an issue which temporarily caused some customers to detect a problem in their Lsass.exe files,” he said in an e-mail. Source: InfoWorld

I’m sure the “quick discovery” happened as soon as Tech Support calls starting flooding their call center. Systems crashed and were unable to boot if people didn’t recognize that eTrust was trying to quarantine part of the OS (I would have recognized the filename, but my wife sure wouldn’t have!). I wonder what their Tech Support department is doing for those people who are in that situation? New AV signatures aren’t going to fix those issues.

Really, why wasn’t this caught in QA? Makes me glad I follow my own advice about using a lesser known, but well-rated AV product. (In a sidenote, I liked it a lot better when CA was Computer Associates … less likely to mix up their gaffes with California’s gaffes)

Tags: CA, ezTrust, Malware, False Positive

More Sophisticated Voice Recognition Coming to Phones

Now here’s an interesting idea for those of us who have to suffer with thumbboards. A program that will address an email, as well as up to 20 words (heck, what do you want?) and then send it … all via voice control

The $6 a month service offers about 15 voice command functions, including email, text messaging, calendar entries, address book searches, Google searches and weather reports.

It is now available on high-end Sprint and Nextel smart phones. The carrier plans to start rolling it out on conventional cellphones before the end of the year. Source: Yahoo! News

The program was developed by privately-held MobileVoiceControl Inc., and is available on Sprint Nextel phones. For anyone who’s used a thumbboard (like me!), this could be a godsend.

However, as the article points out, you have to speak slowly and clearly. It’s not clear from the article either how wind noise or just plain noise affects recognition.

Tags: Voice Command, Recognition, Cellular

MySpace to Join Digital Music Craze; Sell Music from Unsigned Bands

Why not capitalize on the wild popularity of MySpace? I mean, it has become the single most visited Internet address among U.S. Web users, according to Hitwise. This isn’t going to be a threat to iTunes, because the bands are unsigned by any labels, but in a nice move, the songs will be in DRM-free MP3 format.

Songs can be sold on the bands’ MySpace pages and on fan pages, in non-copyright-protected MP3 digital file format, which works on most digital players including Apple’s market-dominating iPod. The bands will decide how much to charge per song after including MySpace’s distribution fee, said Rusty Rueff, the chief executive of Snocap, which will manage the e-commerce service. Source: Yahoo! News

The only thing I can say is they should probably have picked a non “Friday before a long holiday weekend” to announce this.

Tags: MP3, iPod, MySpace

Textbooks Wiki-Style

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has already said (paraphrased) “don’t use Wikipedia for academic research.” And hey, that makes a lot of sense. For the most part, anyone can edit anything, and how do you know it’s correct.

On the other hand, developing nations are not in the same boat as us. And an idea has been posited to use Wiki-style textbooks.

Students in developing countries are to get free textbooks written using “wiki” technology that lets anyone add to or edit an online document.

“The usual business model for textbooks just doesn’t work for these countries,” says Rick Watson, an expert on the development of opensource software at the University of Georgia, US. “Why not get groups of academics and their students to write them?” Source: New Scientist

Here’s the key: “academics and their students”. If you get such authors as these, the content, in general, could trusted. Watson has recruited about 80 academics from the US and other countries to his Global Textbook project, but … even with that, the need to maintain accuracy is still mentioned in the text of the article as a potential problem.

Tags: Textbooks, Wikipedia, Wiki