Date: 06/29/06     Keywords: web

I learnt a hard lesson today on mod_rewrite. I haven’t had time to explore further to find the root cause. I present it as it is in the hope that it will help someone like me to solve their strange mod_rewrite problems. I created a new website on a new domain which is hosted on the [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/mod_rewrite-lesson-how-to-make-it-work/

Date: 06/28/06     Keywords: web

Surfing the Web on a mobile device may become easier thanks to a new set of standards approved by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The new set of rules and guidelines specify how Web sites should work and be viewed on portable devices are collectively called - “Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0.” The standards offer [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/w3c-releases-mobile-web-best-practices-guide/

Date: 06/28/06     Keywords: google

Q: What is Google Payment System, or GBuy? A. Press has nick-named it GBuy; We have not announced a payment system name yet. We are focused on advertiser satisfaction. In studying what advertisers do, the more quickly we can get the advertise to buy cycle to close, the happier our advertisers are (our customers, the people who [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-on-gbuy-google-online-payment-system/

Date: 06/28/06     Keywords: google

Google announces Google Desktop Gadget contest, with $8,000 in cash prizes. You can use Google Desktop Gadget Designer, a new developer tool for creating, maintaining and debugging gadgets faster than before. The contest runs until July 31st, 2006 and, while supplies last, each developer who submits an approved gadget will receive a limited edition Google Desktop [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/google-announces-google-desktop-gadget-contest/

Date: 06/28/06     Keywords: google

Google is pledging to demystify the hidden workings of its search engine while refocussing on its core business. Google admitted that it has come to be perceived as overly secretive in the way it collects and orders information. To counter that, high-level executives are taking part in a roadshow to shed light on how Google searches [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/google-opens-up-search-engine-secrets/

Date: 06/28/06     Keywords: microsoft

Microsoft has responded to user concerns about phone home feature in Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program. However rumours are now circulating about an even more ominous intrusion into their privacy. As promised, Microsoft has now scaled back the phone home feature, so that it only contacts home base every couple of weeks, with the promise that [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/microsoft-windows-genuine-advantage-scales-back-rumors-of-disabling-pirated-copies/

Date: 06/28/06     Keywords: no keywords

Cell phone emissions excite the part of the brain cortex nearest to the phone according to a study published in the Annals of Neurology. Dr. Paolo Rossini of Fatebenefratelli hospital in Milan and colleagues used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or TMS to check brain function while people used these phones. In 12 of the 15 male volunteers, the [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/cell-phone-emissions-excites-brain-warning-for-epilepsy/

Date: 06/28/06     Keywords: no keywords

Advanced Micro Devices’ Opteron chip soared up the latest ranking of the top 500 supercomputers in the world with 81 of the servers, up dramatically from 25 systems last year. Intel’s processors can be found in 301 (down from 333 in November) of the Top 500 systems, with its 64-bit Xeon processors accounting for 118 of [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/opteron-climbs-supercomputer-rankings-while-intel-goes-down/

Date: 06/28/06     Keywords: software, virus

Sometime back Sony BMG released DRM rootkit software. At that time Sony insisted that no one should care about the Sony BMG rootkits because most people had no clue what rootkits were. Almost immediately a virus known as Ryknos, Breplibot or Stinx-Q was written to exploit Sony rootkit vulnerability. Ryknos allowed access to commercial information [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/sony-rootkit-virus-writers-arrested/

Date: 06/28/06     Keywords: web, google

This week, possibly as soon as Wednesday, Google is expected by many to unveil a new Internet payment system. It may start out as an online wallet but could become a PayPal-like infrastructure for payments across the Web, handling everything from skis to music and videos, analysts said Tuesday. As a wallet system, Gbuy would let [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/gbuy-googles-internet-payment-system/

Date: 06/26/06     Keywords: technology

Digg, the popular technology news site, appears to crumble under its own popularity. For quite sometime I am unable to access digg site. What about you? I wonder, can digg be digged?

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/digg-down/

Date: 06/26/06     Keywords: software

Ever rising salaries and poor quality of manpower are prompting foreign firms to shut their outsourcing operations in India. U.S. based Apple Computer and software maker Pervasive have been joined by Powergen, a British subsidiary of German energy supplier E.ON, in announcing their exit from Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of Indian IT industry. Stating that the potential [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/rising-salaries-and-lowering-quality-threatens-indian-it-industry/

Date: 06/26/06     Keywords: asp, microsoft

In a typically sandwitched message format (good news-bad news-good news), Quentin Clark from Microsoft announces the death of WinFS filesystem in WinFS blog. “we are not pursuing a separate delivery of WinFS, including the previously planned Beta 2 release. With most of our effort now working towards productizing mature aspects of the WinFS project into [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/rip-winfs-killed-by-microsoft/

Date: 06/26/06     Keywords: security

Sun Certified Security Administrator for Solaris 10 OS (311-303) If you are an expert security administrator, this is your golden opportunity to get certified for free by taking Solaris 10 Sun Certified Security Administrator exam. Sun beta exams count towards official Security Certification. The Sun Certified Security Administrator for the Solaris 10 Operating System exam is for [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/free-sun-security-administrator-certification-examination/

Date: 06/26/06     Keywords: virus

A World Health Organization probe revealed that the bird flu virus mutated within an Indonesian family. An Indonesian man who died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu almost certainly caught the disease from his 10-year-old son. He is the first laboratory-confirmed case of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 strain. Bird Flu virus infected eight members [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/human-to-human-bird-flu-transmission-confirmed-by-who/

Date: 06/26/06     Keywords: php, security, hosting

Maksymilian Arciemowicz has discovered a weakness in PHP, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to bypass certain security restrictions. This could have a major impact in shared hosting systems. The weakness is caused due to an input validation error in the PHP error_log() function in the processing of the destination parameter. It can be [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/php-safe-mode-bypass-weakness-uncovered-in-error_log/

Date: 06/26/06     Keywords: no keywords

An “emotionally aware” computer is being developed by British and American scientists which will be able to read an individual’s thoughts by analyzing a combination of facial movements, like a raised eyebrow, quizzical look or a nod of the head, that represents underlying feelings. The system allows a wide range of mental states to be identified [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/mind-reading-emotionally-aware-computers-and-cars-coming-soon/

Date: 06/26/06     Keywords: google

Google Earth rival Geoportail dies in one day. It’s got to be a guiness record. The French president Jacques Chirac just chaired the official launch of Geoportail The site says (translated by Google Translator): You are incredibly numerous to connect you to Géoportail, gate of the territories and the citizens since his setting on line. We recorded several million [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/french-google-earth-rival-dies-in-a-day/

Date: 06/26/06     Keywords: software, browser, security, web

Free web browser - Browsezilla promotes itself as a tool for privacy protection. It is actually a click-fraud engine for pornographic sites, said security vendor Panda Software. Browsezilla claims to help surfers cover their tracks when visiting pornographic sites. It does not use browser history or save data to a cache, and it allows [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/free-privacy-protection-web-browser-browsezilla-is-click-fraud-engine-for-porn-sites/

Date: 06/26/06     Keywords: no keywords

Windows Genuine Advantage includes two main tools - Windows Genuine Advantage Validation and Windows Genuine Advantage Notification. The WGA Validation too checks that an instance of Windows XP is properly licensed, and is required for some Windows updates. If the copy doesn’t check out, WGA Notification repeatedly reminds the user to upgrade to a properly [...]

Source: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/how-to-remove-windows-genuine-advantage-notifications-tool/