Project: Mac mini Cube

"There are mods, and then there are really nice mods. I think Anthony's Mac mini Cube might just be the best Mac mini-based mod you will ever see."
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Ultimate Programmer Reference Resource (with Ajax search)

You can find any function/class/tag/style in 2 seconds using this search service. Works with most of the technologies including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Perl, Ruby, Oracle, PHP, XSL, ActionScript, ColdFusion, C/C++ and more.
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Scientists Say White House Muzzled Them

Two federal agencies are investigating whether the Bush administration tried to block government scientists from speaking freely about global warming and censor their research, a senator said Wednesday.
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Forgent Settles JPEG Patent Cases

"As many of you know, the JPEG image compression is actually proprietary. This has resulted in many lawsuits between its owner, Forgent Networks, and other companies that have used it. Yesterday Microsoft and about 60 other defendants settled with Forgent to the tune of $8 million. For a company with annual revenues of $15 million, that's nothing to sneeze at. You haven't heard the last of Forgent yet, as the article states, 'It is currently pursuing claims against cable companies over a patent that it says covers technology inside digital video recorders.' Sounds like that one could be worth a little bit of cash, wouldn't you think?"
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Zune Website Now Live

Microsoft’s new new bundled personal media player/service Zune goes on sale on Tuesday November 14. The official Zune website went live this morning at zune.net.

The device will retail for $249. The full specs are below, but the Zune has a 320×240 pixel 3 inch screen (a little bigger than the 2.5 inch screen on the current iPod Video), 4/14 hour battery life for video/music, and 802.11 b/g connectivity.
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'I'm the CEO of HP, right?'

Mark Hurd's latest contribution to the HP spy scandal has made three things clear. The CEO has a horrible memory, a tenuous grasp of the internet and a very measured approach to tackling ethics issues.

HP this week released a set of replies that Hurd provided in response to questions from Rep. Ed Whitfield, chairman of the House subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Whitfield looked to follow on some gaps from Hurd's Congressional testimony last month on the HP pretexting mess. And Hurd obliged with his best Ollie North impression.

"Not that I recall" appears about nine times in Hurd's answers to the 20 questions.
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There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study.

Stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

Writing in the journal Science, the international team of researchers says fishery decline is closely tied to a broader loss of marine biodiversity.
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Top 100 photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

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All NHL Games Free on Google Video Now

Now you can download full-length NHL games and watch them on your time. Whether it's a memorable game or a keepsake of your first in-arena experience, NHL Video is always available on Google.
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Intel's quad-core chip powerful but pricey

Only the most demanding PC users will be able to keep Intel's new quad-core processor satisfied, according to several reviews released Thursday.

Intel's first attempt at putting four processing cores into a PC delivers an awful lot of performance, but it underscores the need for software developers to create more multithreaded applications, reviewers said. In terms of raw performance, the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 blows away any other chip available from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices, but when it comes to several applications, the four-core chip isn't any better than its dual-core siblings.
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Microsoft to support Novell's cancer

SuSE seller shares soar

Microsoft has agreed to sell cancer. Or least to support Novell's SuSE Linux and be more friendly to the open source operating system.

In a bizarre corporate tie-up, Microsoft looks set to announce this afternoon a partnership with a company it's spent years trying to crush. The company will reveal a support and software development deal with Novell around SuSE Linux. In addition, Microsoft is expected to pledge that it will not sue over IP issues around the OS.
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Best video game levels of all time

From Mario to Shadow of the Colossus, from Call of Duty to Beyond Good & Evil, from Goldeneye to many more, Destructoid has taken time to poll gamers over a few weeks to decide one some of the best video games ever. Feel free to comment and contribute to the list!
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Former CA chief Kumar gets 12 years in the pen

Computer Associates' former chief executive Sanjay Kumar has been sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $8m for his role in the company's massive accounting scandal.

Kumar avoided the maximum 20-year sentence for obstruction of justice and securities fraud charges as US trial judge Leo Glasser said this constituted unreasonable punishment. While Kumar was not a violent criminal, he "did violence to the legitimate expectations of shareholders," Glasser said.
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Hak.5 Season 2 Episode 4 Released

Paul takes a look at Q, an open source emulator for the PowerPC Mac platform. Erin Shahan joins us to talk about the geeks natural predator, RSI. Alli shows off an idiot-proof Nintendo DS mod chip with plenty of hackability (and Doom of course). And Wess adds style to your micro with a blingin' modded mouse.
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Surprises in Microsoft Vista's EULA

"Scott Granneman takes a look at some surprises in Microsoft Vista's EULA that limit what security professionals and others can do with the new operating system. You want to post benchmarking results? Well, Microsoft may now have a say in it. Vista's EULA no longer shows up on Microsoft's software licensing page, but does still exist — also take note of Windows DRM deciding what you can and can not listen to, and Defender deciding and removing what it considers spyware automatically (by default)."
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Tim Berners-Lee Announces Web Science Initiative

MIT and the University of Southampton in Britain have announced an initiative called Web Science. Tim Berners-Lee is leading the program, which is essentially about formalizing a new kind of scientific discipline. The goal is to understand the deeper structure of the social Web and how people are using it.
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Microsoft backtracks on Vista transfer limits

REDMOND, Wash.--Reversing a licensing change announced two weeks ago, Microsoft said on Thursday that it will not limit the number of times that retail customers can transfer their Windows Vista license to a different computer.

On Oct. 16, Microsoft issued the new user license for Vista, including terms that would have limited the ability of those who buy a boxed copy of the operating system to transfer that license. Under the proposed terms, users could have made such a switch only one time.
However, the new restriction prompted an outcry among hardware enthusiasts and others. Microsoft is returning the licensing terms to basically what they were in Windows XP--users can transfer their license to a new PC an unlimited number of times, provided they uninstall and stop using it on the prior machine.

The software maker said it paid attention to the response both directly to the company and on blogs and decided to reverse course. Microsoft had hoped to use the change to aid its ongoing efforts to thwart piracy.
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Microsoft to do a Linux deal with Novell?

Microsoft is entering into a partnership with rival Novell involving Windows and Novell's rival Suse Linux operating system, a source familiar with the situation said. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian will to announce details of their plan Thursday afternoon at a news conference, the source said.
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Motorola chairman: Mobiles for under $15 likely by 2008

Mobile phones costing less than $15 will be available in developing countries by 2008, Motorola Chairman David Brown has predicted.

If handsets can be delivered that cheaply, it could lead to another 100 million people a year getting their first phones, he said.

The thrifty price tag on the handsets is partly because of chip manufacturers' commitments to supply inexpensive silicon components, Brown said.
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Microsoft sets date for hardware conference

Microsoft on Wednesday announced a date for its next Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, the company's annual confab with PC and computing hardware makers.

WinHEC 2007 will take place in Los Angeles, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, between May 15 and 17, the company said.
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HBO film draws Diebold's fury

If our votes aren't safe, then neither is our democratic society.

That's the premise behind a documentary called "Hacking Democracy," which HBO plans to broadcast on Thursday night. The cable network describes the 90-minute movie as a "cautionary" tale that seeks to shed some light on perceived vulnerabilities in computer software used in electronic voting machines.
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YouTube Restores Comedy Central Clips

"Though YouTube has removed Comedy Central clips, their corporate parent Viacom has confirmed that it wants to find some way to keep the clips available. Viacom has apparently given the green light for YouTube to put the material back up."
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Video: How do people use solar power?

The costs and innovative uses of solar energy are examined in this clip from "The Power of the Sun," narrated by John Cleese.
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Technology voter guide 2006

Ever since the mid-1990s, politicians have grown fond of peppering their speeches with buzzwords like broadband, innovation and technology.

John Kerry, Al Gore and George W. Bush have made fundraising pilgrimages to Silicon Valley to ritually pledge their support for a digital economy.

But do politicos' voting records match their rhetoric? To rate who's best and who's worst on technology topics before the Nov. 7 election, CNET News.com has compiled a voter's guide, grading how representatives in the U.S. Congress have voted over the last decade.
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I want a Firefox Extension to ...

200+ extremely useful Firefox extensions that save time and effort.
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Holiday Buyers' Guide 2006

This year has been dominated by fresh innovation and increased value for the end user. Intel released its powerful and efficient Core 2 processor family, AMD introduced the Socket AM2 platform and even purchased graphics specialist ATI, who has been fighting fierce battles for 3D supremacy with arch rival Nvidia. Power supplies exceeded the 1,000 W milestone, hard drives hit 750 GB, USB memory sticks and iPOD Nanos became available at up to 8 GB, and large-format widescreen TFT displays finally became affordable.

But these advances came at a price, as the number of similar products on the shelves has multiplied. If you don't follow the hardware market closely on a regular basis, you can easily get lost in the product jungle. Which processor model is the right one? Does it make sense to buy the highest-performance components for your computer? What is the difference between all the external storage products? Will purchasing high-end components ensure a future-proof system?

We will not be able to answer all of these questions right away, but the Holiday Buyers' Guide will give you an overview of the products that we generally recommend - as gifts for friends, family and others you value, or even just for yourself. Let's get started!
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Google donates $30,000 to CC

Google has donated $30,000 to Creative Commons, the open licensing organization.
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Microsoft Considers Pulling Out of China

A senior executive for Microsoft has said the firm could pull out of non-democratic countries such as China. From the article: "Fred Tipson, senior policy counsel for the computer giant, said concerns over the repressive regime might force it to reconsider its business in China. 'Things are getting bad... and perhaps we have to look again at our presence there,' he told a conference in Athens."
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Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Reviews

"The first reviews of Intel's new quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6700 have emerged this morning and opinion is mixed. TrustedReviews were blunt: 'There is nothing new on display here. Very few people will need quad cores...' while Tech Report think 'many owners of this beast may be stuck waiting for new applications to arrive that use it to its fullest ability.' The boys at bit-tech managed to overclock to 3.47GHz and found the first killer application: quad-core support in the Source Engine! Nice!"
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IE7 Released As High-Priority Update

"Internet Explorer 7 was finally released this morning and is available via automatic update or download from Microsoft."
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The Virus That Ate DHS

A Morocco-born computer virus that crashed the Department of Homeland Security's US-VISIT border screening system last year first passed though the backbone network of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement bureau, according to newly released documents on the incident.

The documents were released by court order, following a yearlong battle by Wired News to obtain the pages under the Freedom of Information Act. They provide the first official acknowledgement that DHS erred by deliberately leaving more than 1,300 sensitive US-VISIT workstations vulnerable to attack, even as it mounted an all-out effort to patch routine desktop computers against the virulent Zotob worm.
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Kentsfield Released: Core 2 Quadro Ready to Ravage the High-End

Today Intel released the highly-anticipated quad-core version of its powerful Core 2 desktop processor series. Little more than two Core 2 Duo E6700 cores in one socket package, today's model QC6700 offers the same performance and efficiency enhancements found in its dual-core predecessor.
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Cuba: We're forced to 'finance' the Internet

ATHENS, Greece--A Cuba government official told a United Nations summit here that the U.S. government was to blame for the poor Internet access that its citizens endure.

Juan Fernandez, a government official in the Cuba's Commission of Electronic Commerce, on Wednesday assailed the U.S. government's economic embargo and argued that, as a result, poorer countries are "financing" the Internet. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Fernandez to a high-level working group two years ago.

Fernandez's only problem was that a longtime Internet engineer and researcher was present and challenged those claims. Bill Woodcock, research director of the nonprofit Packet Clearing House who has set up Internet exchange points in Latin America and other developing nations, replied by saying that the Cuban government's problems stem from its own telecommunications monopoly and its official censorship policies.
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Google launches new mobile Gmail

Google launched on Thursday a version of Gmail for mobile devices that lets U.S. users do in two clicks what previously took them 10 or more.

Gmail for Mobile Devices is a free, downloadable Java application that will work on any Java-enabled mobile phone, of which there are about 300 in the United States, said Tony Hsieh, product manager for Google Mobile.
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InstaCalc: A Shared Embeddable Calculator

InstaCalc is an online calculator that can be embedded in a web page, edited by anyone, displayed in charts and shared in a given state with a link. If you’ve got a formula and some numbers, you can post it on your blog or website and I can see how things would work out with different numbers. The math is done in real time.
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CEO Nabbed for Identity Theft From Own Employees

"And you think your boss is a jerk? Check out this VARBusiness story about a tech CEO the feds say was using his employees' personal information to apply for loans and credit cards to the tune of $1 million. Somewhere a whole lot of businesses who bought this guy's managed-services pitch are cringing with the thought of who is taking care of their data now. And 50 employees are gonna have to sweat out their credit reports even as they look for new jobs. Now that's a lousy boss!"
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Dell puts AMD-powered notebooks on sale

Dell's first notebooks with chips from Advanced Micro Devices appeared for sale on its Web site Wednesday, although the company made no formal announcement.

The PC maker has never publicly discussed plans to use AMD's notebook technology. But sources familiar with Dell's strategy said earlier this year that it was only a matter of time before the company added notebooks to the AMD-based desktops and servers it had already introduced.
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Apple unveils iTunes Latino

Apple Computer has added a new portal to its iTunes store that highlights Latino entertainment.

Latin music has been highly successful on iTunes, which is why the company decided to create an area dedicated to the category on the iTunes store, Apple said in a statement.

The iTunes Latino section lists the top-selling songs and albums from Latino artists, as well as links to Spanish-language television programs, videos, audiobooks and podcasts.
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Circuit City chases service with new Firedog brand

On the second floor of Circuit City's store in New York's Union Square, near the laptop computers and accessories, is a counter devoted to the retailer's new hope for its services business: Firedog.

Firedog is the consumer tech-support services brand that the No. 2 U.S. electronics retail chain launched in September and is now promoting with an advertising campaign.

"We've got a vision of being a services company with retail roots," said Marc Sieger, senior vice president for services at Circuit City. "Services is going to be a huge play, and people want it."
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Attack code out for new Apple Wi-Fi flaw

Kicking off a "month of kernel bugs," a security researcher has released attack code that he claims exploits a new security hole in wireless software from Apple Computer.

The vulnerability lies in the Apple AirPort driver, according to details on the flaw published by H.D. Moore, the developer of the Metasploit security tool. It affects only the AirPort driver provided with wireless cards shipped between 1999 and 2003 with PowerBooks and iMacs, the posting said.
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Microsoft sets date for Office, Vista business launch

Microsoft plans to mark the business launch of Windows Vista and Office 2007 with an event in New York on Nov. 30.

Microsoft also plans to tout the launch of Exchange 2007 at the "New Day for Business" event, to be held at the Nasdaq stock exchange and starring CEO Steve Ballmer. "This event will mark the business availability of three major releases from Microsoft," the software maker said in an invitation e-mailed to a set of journalists on Wednesday.
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AT&T expands Homezone digital-media service

AT&T, the nation's largest phone company, said on Wednesday it was expanding its AT&T Homezone service, which combines high-speed Internet and satellite television in one set-top box.

The Homezone service, which offers digital video recording, movies on demand, and photo- and music-sharing will now be available in most areas it operates in, the company said.

The service was initially launched in July in selected areas in Texas and Ohio.
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Samsung office raided in price-fixing probe

Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest maker of memory chips, said its German offices were raided as part of a European Union probe into suspected price-fixing of SRAM chips.

"We were raided on Oct. 11 in connection with our SRAM products," a representative for Samsung Germany said Wednesday. "We are cooperating in full with the investigation."

The European Commission said Tuesday it had raided the offices of several makers of SRAM chips in Germany, suspecting price-fixing in the sector.
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Orbiter to Look for Lost-To-Mars Probes

A super-powerful camera orbiting Mars may help discover the fate of long-lost spacecraft that never phoned home after reaching the red planet.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is now circling that puzzling world, equipped to assist in determining whether life ever arose on the red planet and characterize its climate and geology, as well as prepare for future expeditionary crews to land there.

But another sharp-shooting skill of MRO is catching sight of past probes—craft that ran into trouble and died in the line of Mars duty. That includes NASA’s gone but not forgotten Mars Polar Lander and the British-built Beagle 2.
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