TechBulletin

While DNS access is at the centre of internet usage, it is very rare for hackers to actually hit these sites and have a major impact. 

Unfortunately in a chilling blast from the past, i.e. a similar attach in 2002, South Korean hackers have managed to disable three of the thirteen server at UltraDNS, the company which looks after DNS address ending in a variety of suffixes. 

The main suffix hit was the “.org” tag which has historically been used by a number of governments for both their public and secret websites.  The servers were disabled by sending masses of spam data to the servers over a large space of time, eventually leading to three servers “falling”. 

While the attack in 2002 had more widespread repercussions due to the fact that there were less servers in the system, many internet users would not have noticed the recent attack because of the back up and additional servers in place.  Even though there has been no widespread disruption or damage to the sites in question, many are starting to wonder if we will see an increase in such attacks over the coming months.

While internet security has increased dramatically over the last few years, it seems that the most basic of prolonged attacks can still have an impact.

While the new Windows Vista operating system is out there in the market place, it seems that all is not well with Microsoft’s much awaited system.  Apple have strongly recommended that iPod users refrain from upgrading to Vista ahead of compatibility “patches“ required to steady the system.

It appears that one of the potential side-effects of upgrading your iPod to Windows Vista is the chance of major corruption to the device.  Apple have also issued advice about connecting iPods to a desktop port supported by Windows Vista, as there is the chance that songs downloaded via the Vista software port may not be compatible with the iPod internal software.

In general Windows Vista has been fairly well received, although there are concerns from both regulators and third parties such as Apple, that the lack of discussion and co-operation in the development of the system will prevent immediate universal acceptance.  Even though so-called “fix patches” are common place in the computing world, it is a little worrying to see the current level of concerns being expressed publicly.

While there is no doubt that the Vista operating system is an improvement on all before, there are still a number of issues to address before everybody will be content with the safety and comparability aspects.

As the influence of the internet continues to grown, moving into all areas of society, there is speculation that we may soon see a new entrant to the massive search engine market - a competitor for the all conquering Google?

Rumour has it that France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchinson Whampoa, Telecom Italia, Cingular and Vodafone have all arranged to meet up at a major forthcoming mobile telecom show in Barcelona.  It appears that they are looking to discuss the creation of their own search engine service for mobiles, something that may well have a long term impact on the traditional search engine companies such as Google, MSN and Yahoo.

While the idea of a new service has been mooted, many believe that this is the first in a series of bargaining tools and the opportunity to open up discussions with the likes of Google.  If the major mobile phone network companies act together, they have the combined power to stand their ground against Google, etc.

As the merger of mobile communications and the internet continues, many in the industry are seeing the potential for a very lucrative new market.  While Google have dictated the online market of late, they may have met their match with the mobile network leaders.

To many it may sound like a gimmick, but the launch of a music search engine called Midomi (Midomi.com) has the potential to break into new areas of voice recognition. Recently released in beta form by Melodis (Melodis.com), Midomi is a voice activated recognition system geared towards the music market.

The website allows you to either sing, hum or whistle your favourite song, and the search engine will analyse the tune, words, etc and search its vast database of songs to find a match.  While you may believe that it is impossible to search on the above criteria, the system is built around a very powerful recognition system called the Multimodal Adaptive Recognition System (MARS). 

The high tech MARS system actually strips down the sound input to words, pitch, tempo, etc.  The system is then capable of ignoring the speech element if the user hums or sings the song, allowing for a more defined search criteria.

The site is part of a social network which allows users to tag and store their favourite songs, which are then automatically added to the search engine database.  As the database of songs is ever growing, the array of songs will always be changing with the times.

The algorithms and filtering system behind this venture can be used in a variety of areas of business in the future.  This is no gimmick and could literally change the way we search for information on the internet.

WikiUpload’s goal is to build the largest library of open-content video clips, music and media files, and shareware in the world. To accomplish this goal, WikiUpload needs your help! We encourage all visitors to share their free resources.

Unlike other free file hosting libraries, there are no geographic or financial barriers to accessing this information. Everything on this site is free! This will help everyone benefit from each other’s contribution in a digitally democratic format. We will rank hosted files based on their popularity to showcase the most useful contributions.

The growth of this file hosting website will be dependent on volunteers. We will need your help in contributing files and reporting files that violate our terms of service.

In the beginning, after uploading your file we will host it forever as long as it is accessed at least once by anyone in 30 days. As the site grows and resources are added we will be able to allow bigger file sizes than 5GB and longer time periods of 30 days, 45 days and so on.

http://www.wikiupload.com/

you can create temp email even for one hour….

With this service you can create a temporary e-mail address that will forward all incoming mail to your usual e-mail address.  Simply enter your e-mail address and the life time of your spambox and we will generate you a temporary @spambox.info e-mail.

They claim that , We create for you a temporary e-mail address that will expire in the time you chose, all the mails directed to this e-mail will be transparently forwarded to your real e-mail.

Let me know if some one tries this service….

 http://spambox.us/

Ever wanted to convert Image to text or Ascii…. here is a nice online tool for this…

upported image file formats: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP and most others.

URLs to images

To convert an image to ASCII, you have to enter the address to the image location. You can usually get this by right-clicking on the image and choose COPY IMAGE LOCATION

http://asciiconvert.com/

Speedtest.net is a general use broadband connection analysis tool with many geographically dispersed testing servers. If you are experiencing slowness with your Internet connection, Speedtest.net can help you identify and prove it. Your result history is saved so you can compare against past tests to detect trends. Share links to your result images with your ISP and friends.

Speedtest.net initially recommends a server for you based on what the application thinks is the shortest physical distance between you and one of the servers. However, because the Internet does not actually operate in direct paths, this recommendation may not be ideal. To best utilize Speedtest.net, find the server that provides the fastest and most consistent results and set it as your preferred server. This will turn it into your new recommended server. Test against this server frequently to make sure you are getting what you pay for from your ISP!

Web search leader Google Inc.’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, sees a future where mobile phones are free to consumers who accept watching targeted forms of advertising.Schmidt said Saturday that as mobile phones become more like handheld computers and consumers spend as much as eight to 10 hours a day talking, texting and using the Web on these devices, advertising becomes a viable form of subsidy.  more….

Yahoo is planning to embed instant messaging into its Web-based e-mail program within the next few months so that people can have live chats in Yahoo Mail, even if they don’t have an instant-messaging application installed, a Yahoo executive announced on Thursday.Brad Garlinghouse, vice president of communications, communities and front doors at Yahoo, gave a technology preview at the Web 2.0 Summit here of a new feature planned for Yahoo Mail that seamlessly integrates instant messaging.    more….

YouTube succeeded where Google Video didn’t because users were able to see their videos posted immediately, Google executive Marissa Mayer said at the Web 2.0 Summit here on Thursday.”YouTube let people see the video right away,” Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, said during a short talk. “That’s why it did so well.”  more….

Devine’s van is equipped with TracNet, a system that allows passengers to access the Internet on a vehicle’s video screens. Launched in September by Middletown, Rhode Island-based KVH Industries Inc., TracNet brings the Internet to the installed screens in a car, truck, RV or boat. It also turns the entire vehicle into a wireless hot spot, so passengers can use their laptops to go online.   more...

The bulk upload dashboard on Google Base went under the knife and got a new look, however I don’t think it’s really an improvement at all.  It almost looks like they took out everything good about the original dashboard and called it “new”.The old dashboard had all the relevant information nicely displayed in a grid format — very easy to read and understand.  The new one removes anything resembling a grid and mashes everything together.   more….

On the heels of its July 2006 acquisition of Mark Russinovich’s Winternals Software, Microsoft has replaced the popular Regmon and Filemon utilities with a single tool offering advanced capabilities for real-time monitoring of registry and process thread activity.The release of the new utility, called Process Monitor coincides with the relaunch of the Sysinternals portal as the Windows Sysinternals TechCenter on Microsoft TechNet.Russinovich, a respected Windows kernel guru who joined the Redmond, Wash. vendor as a Technical Fellow in the Platforms and Services Division, describes Process Monitor as “a powerful new monitoring tool that is best described as Regmon and Filemon on steroids.”  more…

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday agreed to provide Internet search services to Indian mobile phone users as Chief Executive Steve Ballmer met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the company’s expansion in the country.  more…

The web’s love affair with blogging shows no signs of abating according to the latest report from blog tracking firm Technorati.Every day 100,000 new blogs are created and 1.3 million posts are made, it found during its quarterly survey.Postings intensify around significant events such as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer.  more..

YouTube, the video-sharing Web site recently acquired by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, beat out a vaccine that prevents a cancer-causing sexually transmitted disease and a shirt that simulates a hug to grab top honors as Time magazine’s “Invention of the Year for 2006.”Time magazine, owned by media conglomerate Time Warner Inc., wrote in an article that YouTube’s scale and sudden popularity have changed the rules about how information — along with fame and embarrassment — gets distributed over the Web.  more….

A surge in “phishing” in the first half of 2006 has produced a sharp rise in the amount of money being lost to online banking fraud.Phishing involves using fake websites to lure people into revealing their bank account numbers.The number of recorded incidents rose 16-fold to 5,059, said the Association of Payment Clearing Services (APACS). That led to a 55% rise in losses from online fraud against banks, reaching £23m in the first half of 2006.  more…

In a sequel to its advocacy of internal blogs, Sun Microsystems has begun encouraging its rank-and-file employees to publish videos promoting the company’s products.Sun has launched an internal contest to see who can publish the most compelling video at video-sharing site YouTube, said Sun Chief Marketing Officer Anil Gadre.   more….

Microsoft on Monday unveiled a new, downloadable browser application that brings the photorealism and maneuverability of gaming into its online mapping and local search service.In Virtual Earth 3D, which is part of Microsoft’s Live Search, users can “fly” over cities and in between buildings just like they do in virtual-reality environments, like that found in the online 3D world of Second Life.  more…