TechBulletin

While many groups have criticised the video gaming industry for the damage caused to the eyes and lives of children in particular, a recent study has found out that there may be benefits to “moderate” use of video games.  How can this be?

A study by researchers in the US has identified a number of benefits to playing video games, not least the stimulation to both the eyes and the brain.  It seems that action video games in particular change the way in which our brains process visual information, making the brain more alert to surrounding visuals and able to process changes quicker.

The researchers took a group of graduate students and gave them eye tests prior to the study.  The group was then split into two and one group was exposed to a degree of video game playing, with the other left to lead normal lives.  After a pre-determined time period the groups then returned to under go another round of eye tests.  Remarkably the group who had been exposed to video gaming scored higher in the second eye test, while the other group showed no change compared to the initial tests.

Researchers are now speculating that it may be possible to use video games to assist and correct a number of eye conditions, increasing alertness and responsiveness along the way.  Let the games begin….

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.

Here are the PuTTY files themselves:

• PuTTY (the Telnet and SSH client itself)
• PSCP (an SCP client, i.e. command-line secure file copy)
• PSFTP (an SFTP client, i.e. general file transfer sessions much like FTP)
• PuTTYtel (a Telnet-only client)
• Plink (a command-line interface to the PuTTY back ends)
• Pageant (an SSH authentication agent for PuTTY, PSCP and Plink)
• PuTTYgen (an RSA and DSA key generation utility).

PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. It is written and maintained primarily by Simon Tatham.

The latest version is beta 0.58.

Download PuTTY!

FreeDOS is a free DOS-compatible operating system for IBM-PC compatible systems. FreeDOS is made of up many different, separate programs that act as “packages” to the overall FreeDOS Project.

These days, there are three main uses of FreeDOS:

   1. To run old DOS games (like DOOM, etc.)
   2. To run old business software that only supports DOS
   3. To support an embedded DOS system, such as a computerized cash register or till

You can run FreeDOS on pretty much anything. While can run FreeDOS on a dedicated PC, now it’s most often run inside a PC emulator. You can find PC emulators for all computer platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac.) If you are new to DOS, we recommend you use an emulator to install and boot FreeDOS.

FreeDOS is open source software; you can view and edit our source code. Most FreeDOS programs are distributed under the GNU General Public License (”GNU GPL”) which means they are not only open source software, but they are Free software. Because of this, FreeDOS would not exist were it not for all the people who contribute to it. Even if you didn’t write code, you helped out the FreeDOS Project by submitting comments and bug reports.

http://www.freedos.org/

Starting early next year, the address bar in Internet Explorer 7 will turn green when surfing to a legitimate Web site–but only in some cases, not all.The colored address bar is designed to be a sign that a specific site can be trusted, giving people the green light to carry out transactions there. It is a weapon in the fight against phishing scams, which use fraudulent Web sites.  more….

Microsoft is telling people that Internet Explorer 7 is a “high priority” update, but the company is taking longer than some expected to push the new Web browser out.The software maker said it doesn’t plan to push the browser update out alongside the security patches slated for Tuesday. Instead, the browser update is being trickled out to hundreds of millions of users over a three-month period.   more….

Just a year after releasing its primary tool set for building applications on Windows, Microsoft has announced a set of new technologies aimed at helping developers build next-generation interactive applications for Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office System and the Web.In a keynote address at the Visual Studio & .Net Connections conference here (also known as DevConnections) Nov. 6, Scott Guthrie, general manager of the Developer Division at Microsoft, laid out the new products Microsoft is making available to developers to promote a better development experience on the forthcoming Windows Vista operating system. Windows Vista is expected to be released to manufacturing any day now.   more…

After months of sliding deadlines and revised release dates, the completion of the Office code is a cause for merriment at Microsoft and perhaps to a fair number of customers—450 million people worldwide use Office, and Office 2007 beta was downloaded 3.5 million times. Microsoft on Monday said that its upcoming 2007 version of Microsoft Office has gone “gold,” a designation that marks the productivity software code’s release to manufacturing (RTM).   more….

in a question-and-answer response on its Web site to the co-marketing, technology and indemnification alliance announced Thursday between Novell and Microsoft, Red Hat said that the deal “means Linux has won”. “It was inevitable. The best technology has been acknowledged,” Red Hat said in its statement. “The relentless march of open source is shaking up the industry by freeing customers from proprietary lock-in and lack of choice.” more…

When IE 7 launched last month, Microsoft executives said that the browser update — which will come with a “high priority” label — would start hitting users this month. “We’ve told enterprise customers to be ready [for IE 7] by Nov. 1,” said Margaret Cobb, the group product manager for the browser, in an October interview. Microsoft has begun pushing Internet Explorer 7 to users through Windows XP’s Automatic Update.    More…..

Detailed exploit code for a Windows XP security vulnerability has been published on the Internet, offering a roadmap for hackers to disable the firewall embedded in the operating system  more….

VersionOne’s Fall 2006 release of its agile software development platform features a plug-in for users of the Microsoft Visual Studio environment.  View the Entire Article

One move by rival Oracle Corp. has turned Red Hat Inc. from a celebrated leader in open-source software to a fragile underdog.   View the Entire Article