Free Technology Zone

If this technology takes off, it could mean smaller book stores.  Barnes & Noble or Borders as we know them, may end up looking more like coffee shops than a book store.

You may also see small “mom & pop” book shops sprout out with a drive through for book pick ups, considering the space requirement will be significantly smaller and provided that the machine is relatively affordable for businesses.

Imagine also if libraries get some funding from the government to provide this service. They can get any books available online provided paper supplies are available!

This is also excellent for people who wants to self-publish. See the video below. You don’t have to have a publisher publish your book; you can do it yourself.

It would be interesting how this evolves or develops in the next two to three years.

Microsoft Security Essentials, also known as “Morro”, was officially released as BETA to the public Tuesday, 23 Jun 2009.  This article gives you a quick first look at it.  If you want to look at it yourself, you can download it at https://connect.microsoft.com/securityessentials, but you’ll need an account in connect.microsoft.com (just make one if you don’t have one; it’s free).

OK.  Here’s a quick look at MSE’s user interface.

When you’ve installed it, you will see this icon on your traybar:  

When you open it, you will the following four tabs:  Home, Update, History, and Settings.

After you install it, MSE will perform its initial scan.  When it did the scan, I checked to see how it was doing with respect to resources and how it was affecting the performance of my computer.  And to my surprise, it was very forgiving.  I was able to do work without having to wait or be affected by MSE scan because apparently it generally tries to run when your computer is idle.  So, when you are busy doing other things, it does release the CPU resource as needed.  Check the task manager below and you’ll see that when I was idle the CPU was at 100%, then I started working and the CPU utilization went down.

Also check out the detailed performance below.  If you aren’t idle, it does get out of your way.

Its memory utilization, for an AV product, doesn’t look that bad.

Of course, I can’t really tell at this point how effective it is in catching malware.  I’ll save that for someone else to do.  For now, know that it is out there and seems to be running just fine.

The wait is over, people can now download Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 software update for free!

To install, you basically need to do the following:

• Install the update using iTunes 8.2.  Download iTunes 8.2 and install it if you don’t already have it.
• Connect your iPhone to your computer
• Select your iPhone from the Devices in the List on the left, when the iTunes application opens
• In the Summary pane, click the Check for Update button and follow any further instructions.
• Done.

Several years ago I saw tried Microsoft’s OneCare—a paid for security solution for Windows computers. Of course, I did it when they were in their BETA phase; thus I was able to use it for free. The product seemed OK, and the BETA period came and went. However, I didn’t hear much about it thereafter. Recently, Microsoft announced that by the end of June 2009, they will discontinue selling it.

However, just recently they made an announcement of plans to release another security product—code named “morro.” There’s definitely a lot of buzz around it: CNET News, ZDNet blog, PCWorld, and Information Week. What’s so special or different about this release? Here are some key points I was able to extract from their press release:

• No cost to consumers
• Lighter and smaller footprint, necessary for less powerful smaller computer systems
• Core focus is on malware protection—against viruses, spyware, root kits, and Trojans—no non-security features like ones found on OneCare
• Stand-alone download with support for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7
• Expected to be released in second half of 2009

Guess what!  Today is June 17, 2009, and according to the Apple web site, the update to the iPhone operating system (version 3.0) will be available today; however, at the time of this writing, no download links were available at the Apple downloads.

Key features of iPhone OS 3.0 are:

• Run peer-to-peer games
• Copy and paste between applications
• Landscape keyboard
• MMS functionality - send audio, pictures, videos, and even take a snapshot right in the message
• Voice memos
• Better Calendar functionality - meetings via MS Exchange ActiveSync; subscribe to calendars (with new CalDAV support)
• Buy movies, TV shows, and audio books
• Enhanced Stocks application
• Safari improvements
• Spotlight search - search your iPhone from one place
• Internet tethering (use your iphone as a modem like device to reach the Internet using your laptop)
• Stereo bluetooth
• Auto wi-fi login
• Sync notes to your PC or Mac
• Parental controls
• iTunes store account
• YouTube Login
• Shake and Shuffle your music library
• Support for 30 languages, 40 keyboard layouts
• MobileMe Find myiPhone and Remote wipe-you’ll need this if you ever lose your iPhone

Visit the iPhone page for more details.

Last night my daughter mentioned that she has joined the KGB, and that she has already made $20 working for them.  She had me worried.   I thought that the KGB (Komityet Gosudarstvjennoj Biezopasnosti) was the intelligence/security branch of the now nonexistent Soviet government (USSR)!

Later that night she showed me some video ads for this company called KGB (Knowledge Generation Bureau).  Here is one of them:

Entertaining huh?

Anyway, my daughter is an avid Yahoo Answers person, and she is a top contributor on one of the categories there. I’ve been telling her to not waste her time with Yahoo Answers since she doesn’t get paid giving out answers. Well, now she is a KGB agent and is actually getting paid answering questions.

What questions may she be answering you ask? Well, the KGB has actually been in business in the US for some time now providing phone directory services. Just this year they started providing text answering service where it costs $0.99 to have a text question answered. From each question she answers, she earns a few cents (e.g. anywhere from 3 to 10 cents per response).  Their agent position page explains the compensation plans.

I thought I would have to contend with Soviet spies.   Whew! what a relief.