Hong Kong Apple Store Tour
Apple opened their first ever Apple store in Hong Kong today. Here is an inside tour of the store.
Archive for: News
Huffington Post To Be Leading Independent Online News Source in UK
The Huffington Post has finally launched their UK edition and I think it is going to be big. Here in the UK there are very few independent news sources, so expect the Huffington Post to be the main player in this market.
On the US version of the Huffington Post they already receive over 1.2 million visitors each month from the UK. They have launched with only 300 bloggers is their system and this is far short of the 10,000 writing on the USA version. However, Im sure this will quickly increase.
As well as the UK expansion the Huffington Post is planning on entering a lot of other European markets in their native languages, so expect to see the Huffington Post all over the place!
Hachi Shows You How To Meet New People
Hachi is a website that allows you connect with new people through your friends. For example if I wanted to become friends with someone (Person1) and my friend(Friend1) is friends with that person it would show you all the possible options to become friends with person1. You must connect via Facebook and it also allows you to connect with LinkedIn for even better results.
New Virus “Erases” Files and Folders: Panics Users
Thanks to a new virus which makes users believe all of their data has been deleted, computer users everywhere are in mass panic and repair shops are busier than ever. This new virus is pure genius and is, as old-school hackers would put it, a “truly righteous” hack. It exploits a loophole in Java which gives the virus god-rights on the computer and installs without the user ever knowing. Unlike most viruses today which trick the user into thinking they have a virus and clicking ‘OK’ to clean it up (which actually installs it), it is embedded in webpages which use Java and installs silently. And since nearly everyone has Java turned on to surf the internet, it installs quietly and effortlessly. Suddenly, all the computer’s files, icons and folders are “gone.” Panic ensues as users frantically try to figure out how to recover their “lost” data. But what has really happened is that the virus has simply hidden every file on the computer! Genius, right? I can only imagine the developers are sitting back having a good laugh about it all.
So what do you do if you get hit by this lovely virus? A non-techy person could take it to a computer repair shop and spend anywhere from $85-$150 to get it fixed. Or for you geeks, you could fix it yourself using the following steps:
(Please note the following steps are for experienced users only – if you are not comfortable performing any of the below steps, take the computer to a professional!)
1) Immediately boot into Safe Mode (with networking) and do not leave this until you are done! (Mashing F8 at the boot screen will do this on most computers – read the boot screen if F8 doesn’t do the trick)
- If you have to reboot at any time, make sure you boot back into Safe Mode!
2) Download and run RKill: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/anti-virus/rkill. This will terminate the virus from running and allow you to clean up the computer. Any of the download links should work – they just have various names to confuse viruses.
3) You need to be able to see the folders/files which are hidden. To do this, do the following:
- Click your start menu
- In the ‘run’ field, type “cmd” and hit enter
- Type: c:*.* /d /s –h
- **The virus may make files read-only as well. If so, include –r.
- **If the virus makes files system files, add –s.
- Do NOT add any unnecessary –r or –s commands. Only use these commands if needed.
4) Make sure you have the following programs installed and updated:
- Microsoft Security Essentials (http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/)
- Super AntiSpyware (http://www.superantispyware.com)
- Remove ANY other antivirus program you have as most don’t live up to their promises and often do more harm than good (ESPECIALLY Norton, McAfee and AVG).
5) Run a FULL scan on both Security Essentials and Super AntiSpyware.
6) Clean up your registry! (If not comfortable with this, pay for a professional cleanup!)
- Go to Start –>Run–>’regedit’ and hit enter, then ‘Ok’ or ‘Yes’
- Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER–>Software–>Microsoft–>Windows–>CurrentVersion–>Run
i. Remove anything which looks suspicious and is not a file you recognize. For instance, an entry with a name like FKA546542EJJAL and stored in a temp file is probably a virus (EXAMPLE ONLY). This is also a good time to remove unnecessary programs from starting up at boot time. - Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER–>Software–>Microsoft–>WindowsNT–>CurrentVersion–>Winlogon
i. Again, remove anything suspicious. If you don’t see anything obvious, DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING. - Go to HKEY_USERS–>’user name’ or ‘.DEFAULT’–> Software–>Microsoft–>Windows–>CurrentVersion–>Run
i. Remove suspicious files as mentioned above
ii. Do this for EVERY user - Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE–>SOFTWARE–>Microsoft–>Windows–>CurrentVersion–>Run
i. Remove suspicious files (be EXTRA careful here as some of these files are necessary for system files to run at startup. Again, if not sure, take it in for a professional cleanup!) - Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE–>SOFTWARE–>Microsoft–>WindowsNT–>CurrentVersion–>WinLogon
i. Double click on ‘Shell’ and make sure it ONLY says ‘explorer.exe’. If there is anything after it, delete it!
ii. Double click on Userinit and make sure it ONLY says ‘C:Windowssystem32userinit.exe,”. If there is anything after it, delete it!
7) Lastly, do a quick file cleanup
- Go to C:WindowsSystem32
i. Sort by Date Modified – click twice so you see the most recent date on top
ii. Going from the date you got infected (hopefully you are doing this the same day or the next day) remove any files which look suspicious (yet again, if you don’t know what you are doing, take it to a professional!) - Go to C:Windows and do as above but look at folders as well as files
- Delete cookies and temp files (any self-respecting geek knows how to do this already)
So by now you have:
1) Made your files viewable and usable again
2) Removed the virus and any associated viruses or malware through using the recommended software
3) Removed registry entries to prevent anything bad from loading on startup and thus re-infecting your machine
4) Removed any negative system entries which may also be contributing to the problem.
You might have even discovered you had other spyware, malware or viruses you didn’t know about throughout all this. But if you did everything correctly, you should be clean. If not, now is definitely a good time to take the computer in for a professional cleanup as your machine likely has bigger problems than you were aware of. Good luck!
**Please note that running these commands will make EVERY file on the system viewable and editable, including previously hidden system files you shouldn’t mess with. Use extreme caution when working with files after doing this. If you aren’t comfortable with this, consider paying for a professional cleanup.
News.me Opens Up Their Amazing Social News iPad App
Are you looking for an all-around brilliant news application for the iPad? Introducing News.me! News.me is a collaboration between betaworks and the New York Times, which brings together the pleasure of reading news online with the portability of the iPad.
News.me also has some great social features that have been missing from other news iPad applications. News.me provides streams, so you can see what the people you follow are talking about on Twitter, while being able to filter and even see how many times an article has been read and shared.
The app charges a subscription fee to cover the costs of licensing content from publishers. Weekly subscriptions are $0.99 and a yearly subscription is only $34.99.
You can download News.me here.
Woman Claims She Now Owns the Sun
Angeles Duran, 49 year-old woman from Spain, said to daily El Mundo that she registered the Sun as her property last week, with the presence of notary.
And how this woman came with the idea for claiming the sun? Well, when she read that in last September there was a guy who registered the Moon and other planets the idea came to her head. And additionally to that, there’s an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals.
“There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I am not stupid, I know the law. I did it but anyone else could have done it, it simply occurred to me first.” said Angeles.
The official document where Duran is taking ownership of the Sun, declares the person as: “owner of the Sun, a star of spectral type G2, located in the center of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000 kilometers.”
And after this, of course, she’ll be charging to anyone who uses the Sun. But wait, not all the money will be for her, she’ll spend only 10% of the funds for herself.
The good news is that I guess we now have someone to sue about skin cancer.
Google is Offering $4 Billion Dollars to Buy Twitter?
Google just initiated one of the most exciting acquisition ideas: Trying to buy Twitter with the nice amount of $4 billion dollars, says Yahoo Finance.
Google made earlier an initial offer of $2.5 billion to acquire Twitter, but not only the micro-blogging service refused this offer, but also said that the amount suggested was “insulting”. That’s why Google is apparently analyzing to increase the bid up to $4 billion dollars.
According to the report, an important source related to Twitter said that 3 months ago they’ve received a similar offer of $4 billion dollars from an unknown buyer (Microsoft?) but it was rejected.
What do you think? Can any of these big companies actually buy Twitter?
Twitter could resist these kinds of bids, in the same way Facebook did?
Apple’s Steve Jobs Moonlights as Ninja?
Sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction, and sometime the lie is more entertaining than the truth. Many news sites are reporting that Steve Jobs was detained while visiting Japan for possession of ninja stars. Yes, that’s right folks, ninja stars. Now while every fanboy would love to imagine their fearless leader as a roof top hopping, invisibility mastering, ninja star throwing hero of lore, Apple is calling the story nothing but pure fiction.
According to the article posted on TechCruch, SPA!, the source of the report, says that while leaving Kansai International Airport near Osaka, Jobs was stopped, searched, and revealed he was carrying ninja stars. Furthermore it’s reported that while it may not have been Jobs, someone was indeed detained and forced to rid themselves of the objects. Apple reports that Steve did visit Japan, but was for vacation, had a great time, and returned without incident.
Still, the thought of Steve Jobs as a ninja warrior may be nice, it appears as if the whole story never even happened. On a related note…crime in the area decreased by 30% during the time Steve Jobs was visiting Japan. Coincidence?
So Steve, while you may not have been a true Ninja at heart, I leave you this song from the 90′s sequel to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, “Go Ninja, Go Ninja, Go!”
PlayStation 3: Unbreakable
George Hotz, the famous geek boy who hacked for the first time an iPhone, said recently on Twitter that he won’t be trying any more bypass the security and controls from Sony’s console PlayStation 3.
Actually he completed an important milestone a while ago; by accessing the PlayStation 3 kernel; where he found several secrets of this console, but the result of getting it hacked was not completed. Sony did not object any of his tasks, even more they encourage him to take over control of this console; but failure was at the end of his trip.
George said: “It was a cool ride, and I’ve learned a lot about a lot. Perhaps one of these days I’ll do a more formal goodbye.” Which makes us wonder about if this “retirement” it is not actually a defeated soldier who just gave up trying?
Hotz credibility was also questioned a while ago when he distributed a fake photo when he said he just hacked the iPhone 4.
Besides all that, we have to admit: Even though I’m no expert on hacking devices, the work on PlayStation 3 by Sony has been incredible.
Lying in your CV Can Get You in Jail
Rihannon Mackay probably made one of the simplest and usually common mistakes a person looking for job could make, lying in their resume. Unfortunately for her, this came with a very high price: 6 months in jail.
Mackay was tempted with a good salary, around £23.000, and she decided to include a few aspects about her experience that were no accurate. And she finally got the job, which she maintained for over a year.
But the scam didn’t have a happy ending, after that year, the company had a lot of suspicious regarding the performance of Rihannon, so they’ve started researching about the current capabilities of this 29-year-old woman and she finally confessed that she lied about her capabilities in her CV.
The company took the case to court where she was found guilty of fraud, translating that into 6 months of jail. She also appealed this decision remarking that her decision to lie in her resume was made because was suffering from post-traumatic stress and depression.
Did you ever lie in your resume?
