A very important Facebook security feature you must op-out of

This feature by default gives all your Facebook information to your friends applications.
Why in the world would my friends Facebook applications need my Bio, My videos, Birthday, My links, Family and relationships, My notes, Interested in and looking for, Photos and videos I’m tagged in, Religious and political views, Hometown, My website, Current city, If I’m online, Education and work, My status updates, Activities, interests, things I like, My photos, Places I check in to?

This is absolutely insane, when you play Farmville or Mafia Wars you are actually giving away all your friends personal information(thanks a lot friend). Then these applications can do whatever they want with it, cause you allowed them to, I mean you didn’t not allow them to

So to opt-out of this ridiculous privacy infringement, goto  AccountPrivacy SettingsInfo accessible through your friends, and uncheck everything!

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ScreamRadious Elgin Texas Great Resource Site

Her is a great resource for Elgin Texas screamradius - Elgin, Texas #elgin #bastrop #austin #texas @theaustingeek

Her is a great resource for Elgin Texas screamradius - Elgin, Texas #elgin #bastrop #austin #texas @theaustingeek …

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HP Releases the Palm Pre 2 with WebOS 2.0
palm-pre-2.jpgWhen it comes to webOS 2.0 (now actually called HP webOS), it almost felt like we’d never see the version number, let alone get to review it. It’s been an intense few months for Palm: after floundering in the early part of the smartphone wars, it was scooped up by HP for a tidy sum of $1.2b. Though it seemed like the dream of webOS could fade away, the company made it clear that it had plans to not only continue the work Palm had done in the mobile world, but extend what the tiny company had created to other platforms as well (tablets, and yes, printers). We’ve heard a lot of talk from both parties since the acquisition, but have seen little in the way of proof that progress was indeed being made — but that’s all changed today. Palm has officially released its second generation OS into the wild, along with a new, beefed up version of the Pre (at least in France — North American handsets are coming soon). The company offered us an early developer phone to test out the new OS and see if the combination of tightened code and a significantly faster device (the Pre 2 clocks in with a 1GHz CPU) could make a difference between last place and a fighting chance. We’ve taken an extensive look at the new OS, so read on for our full take!When it comes to webOS 2.0 (now actually called HP webOS), it almost felt like we’d never see the version number, let alone get to review it. It’s been an intense few months for Palm: after floundering in the early part of the smartphone wars, it was scooped up by HP for a tidy sum of $1.2b. Though …

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BleachBit Cross Platform Free Open Source System Cleanup tool

BleachBit quickly frees disk space, removes hidden junk, and easily guards your privacy. Erase cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, remove unused localizations, shred logs, and delete temporary files. Designed for Linux and Windows systems, it wipes clean 70 applications including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Flash, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Adobe Reader, APT, and more.

Beyond simply deleting files, BleachBit includes advanced features such as shredding files to prevent recovery, wiping free disk space to hide traces of files deleted by other applications, and vacuuming Firefox to make it faster.
Download Now

BleachBit quickly frees disk space, removes hidden junk, and easily guards your privacy. Erase cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, remove unused localizations, shred logs, and delete temporary files. Designed for Linux and Windows systems, it wipes clean 70 applications including Firefox, …

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Facebook offers Disposable Passwords
Facebook has another new feature that will allow users to receive a temporary password via sms text message, allowing the user to log in on a public or unfamiliar computer using the temporary password, this hopefully will 

Facebook has unveiled new measures to keep members secure when they log into its site.

One is a temporary password; another is letting people sign out of Facebook remotely. Finally, it will also now regularly prompt members to update their security information.

“Our new features are aimed at protecting people who log in from devices they don’t own as well as helping people who lose access to an account get it back quickly”

Facebook has another new feature that will allow users to receive a temporary password via sms text message, allowing the user to log in on a public or unfamiliar computer using the temporary password, this hopefully will  Facebook has unveiled new measures to keep members secure when they log into …

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Bing and Facebook New Search Feature
The Most popular Social Networking site “Facebook” and Micro$oft’s Search engine “Bing” have teamed up, recently revealing new search features. Micro$oft is adding “input from users” feature, using Facebook data in the results of a search, giving an idea of what your facebook friends think on a particular topic. Both companies stress privacy is a priority, but the advertising opportunities will be tempting
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Although I have not seen  this feature in action, It sounds to be much like the “Social Circle” feature in Google + BuzzThe Most popular Social Networking site “Facebook” and Micro$oft’s Search engine “Bing” have teamed up, recently revealing new search features. Micro$oft is adding “input from users” feature, using Facebook data in the results of a search, giving an idea of what your facebook friends think on a part …

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Facebook Skype Video Chat Internet Telephone Calls
Facebook & Skype are on the verge of releasing there new partnership, allowing Facebook users to sign in to Skype, send text messages, Video Chat & make Internet telephone calls from their Facebook profile page.

This is just another profile linking feature or “identity aggregation”, this seems to be all the rage, log in to your gmail with your yahoo, log to this with that,
I knew when the Web was growing, and I needed to create an account for each and every site I want to use, there would soon need to be a way to make this more simple. Now with all the “Social Mashup”, RSS Aggregation, and Blog api’s….. the web has changed. 
Facebook & Skype are on the verge of releasing there new partnership, allowing Facebook users to sign in to Skype, send text messages, Video Chat & make Internet telephone calls from their Facebook profile page. http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100929/exclusive-facebook-and-skype-readying-wide-ranging-

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Ubuntu Parallax New Full Screen Interaction
This new feature will use a web cam to detect the users presence, close,
sitting back or not in view. changing various settings like putting a movie
in full screen, or using a very large font for notifications.

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hereThis new feature will use a web cam to detect the users presence, close, sitting back or not in view. changing various settings like putting a movie in full screen, or using a very large font for notifications. read the full article hereClick image to play video …

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Mageia A New Linux Distribution
As you may have heard, the future of the Mandriva Linux distribution is
unclear. Most employees working on the distribution were laid off when Edge-IT was
liquidated. We do not trust the plans of Mandriva SA anymore and we don’t
think the company (or any company) is a safe host for such a project.

Many things have happened in the past 12 years. Some were very nice: the
Mandriva Linux community is quite large, motivated and experienced, the
distribution remains one of the most popular and an award-winning product,
easy to use and innovative. Some other events did have some really bad
consequences that made people not so confident in the viability of their
favourite distribution. People working on it just do not want to be dependent on the economic
fluctuations and erratic, unexplained strategic moves of the company.
Forking Mandriva Linux? Yes.

Forking an existing open source project is never an easy decision to make,
and forking Mandriva Linux is a huge task. It was not an impulsive decision. We all spoke a lot before: former
employees, Cooker contributors and users’ communities. We collected opinions
and reactions in the past weeks as we needed to get some kind of global
agreement and to gather, before going ahead.

We believe a fork is the best solution and we have decided to create a new
distribution: *Mageia *.As you may have heard, the future of the Mandriva Linux distribution is unclear. Most employees working on the distribution were laid off when Edge-IT was liquidated. We do not trust the plans of Mandriva SA anymore and we don’t think the company (or any company) is a safe host for such a project. …

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Escher-like internet map could speed online traffic

dn19420-1_300.jpgA novel map of the internet created by Marián Boguñá and colleagues at the University of Barcelona, Spain, could help make network glitches a thing of the past.

Boguñá squeezed the entire network into a disc using hyperbolic geometry, more familiar to us through the circular mosaic-like artworks of M. C. Escher.

Each square on the map is an “autonomous system” – a section of the network managed by a single body such as a national government or a service provider. The most well-connected systems are close to the centre, while the least connected are at the edges. The area of the hyperbolic plane grows exponentially with distance from the centre, so the edges of the map are “roomier” than the middle.

Like all good cartographers, Boguñá’s team hopes their map will help speed up navigation. At present each system routes traffic by referring to a table of all available network paths, but keeping this up to date is difficult as new paths keep coming on stream while others shut down.

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re-posted from The Austin Geek Blog

The PlayStation 3 powered super-computer
Playstation 3 consoles piled up ahead of lauchGaurav Khanna combined games consoles to make a super-computer capable of serious number-crunching

Playing the PlayStation and getting your homework done are not usually activities which go hand-in-hand, but one university professor may have cracked it.

Dr Gaurav Khanna has no less than 16 Sony PlayStation 3 consoles working together to create a super-computer which he says rivals the power of more than 200 conventional PCs.

But Dr Khanna is no hardcore gamer. Instead, the University of Massachusetts professor is using the entertainment machines for highly complex calculations.

His research is attempting to go back 13 billion years to learn about the origins of the Big Bang, as well as looking at the black holes that exist in space today.

He explained to Digital Planet just how he manages to harness the consoles to carry out the work.

Start Quote

I could use the same number-crunching capability to actually solve a hard mathematical problem or hard scientific problem.”

End Quote Dr Gaurav Khanna University of Massachusetts

“The PlayStation comes loaded with GameOS - which is what you use to navigate through to look at pictures and movies and to launch games. But it also has the option, if you dig into the settings, to install [an] alternative operating system.”

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re-posted from The Austin Geek Blog

Google explains technology behind Instant search

How to handle five to seven times more results pages per query

The system provides a live feed of search suggestions as the user types, and has already won widespread favor.

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“Our key design challenge was to make sure people would notice relevant results without being distracted,” said Ben Gomes, a distinguished engineer Google, in a blog post. “We knew it would take extensive testing to find the right design, so we ran through a sequence of prototypes, usability studies (testing with people from the community), ‘dogfooding’ (testing with Google employees) and search experiments (testing with a small percentage of Google users).”

Initial trials revealed some problems, Gomes explained, such as the results appearing too slowly or in too complex a form, but these were overcome after continued user experiments.

The new feature raised some infrastructure challenges, however, and Google decided to create a technical solution rather than invest in more server capacity.

“When we came to the infrastructure team and said that we are going to be serving five to seven times as many results pages for each query performed in Google Instant, first they threw a fit, then they figured out how to get us there,” said Gomes.

The solution involved a range of technical measures, including new caches that can cope with high refresh rates, and an optimised page-rendering JavaScript code designed to let the browser keep pace with the system.

Google expects to keep innovating with Instant search. “While it is a big change, I believe that we’ll look back and wonder how search was ever any other way,” said Gomes.
Read more: http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2269566/fresh-look-google-instant#ixzz0z8zDcaMI

re-posted from The Austin Geek Blog

Google Instant shows search results as you type

(CNN) — Tired of waiting the tenths of a second it takes to get Google search results?
Google promises it’ll get faster.
The search giant on Wednesday introduced Google Instant, which will give users suggested results before they’re even done typing.
“It’s not quite psychic, but it is very clever,” said Othar Hansson, a senior software engineer at Google.

Using the new system, as a query is typed, the search box immediately jumps to the top of the search page, and a constantly changing list of suggested pages appears. If the user finds the right site, they don’t need to finish typing or hit “enter.”

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re-posted from The Austin Geek Blog

Will WebOS 2.0 let HP compete with Apple?


The next generation of WebOS will make or break HP’s attempt to slide in among RIM, Apple and Google in the mobile arena.

Last week was an Apple launch week, and short of the launch of World War III, there were likely few things that could pull much interest away from this event. Still, HP chose the week to launch WebOS 2.0 in advance of what will is expected to be a line of products that will actually dent Apple’s dominance in the tablet and smartphone space. But hasn’t that boat already sailed, you ask? Can anyone really slow down Apple? And if someone was going to do it, wouldn’t it more likely be a vastly more consumer-oriented company like Sony or Panasonic, than a firm that started out making calculators and test equipment?

Ah, but you forget that HP was the only company to have ever actually scared Apple in the MP3 player space, so much so that Steve Jobs offered HP the opportunity to clone the iPod in order to kill HP’s effort. That scam worked beautifully, but HP is still pissed, and WebOS 2.0 along with its upcoming tablets from HP are Palo Alto’s chance for revenge. That’s high drama, and makes this battle worth watching.

Where the Apple platform is weak

Apple leads with a strong media core, and the company is likely to remain that way when it comes to media. However it fumbles with two things: partnering, and integration with third-party products. This has made the iPhone kind of a joke, because it sucks at being a phone, and with PDA functionality, at least when it comes to connecting to non-Apple e-mail and calendaring services. HP is actually rather good at both partnering and integration It has to be, as the leader in PCs and servers, and HP teams have to work closely with companies like VMware and Microsoft in order to complete their solutions.

This means that HP won’t be as religious about going to war with Adobe and Flash, it will better integrate withMicrosoft Exchange and it will work more closely with more carriers. That means HP may even be better with Apple’s core partner, AT&T, but certainly will emerge rapidly on Verizon and Sprint possibly T-Mobile

re-posted from The Austin Geek Blog

Facebook closes hole that let spammers auto-post to walls, friends

Facebook has closed a hole that was being used by spammers to automatically post wall messages and direct messages to friends, the company said on Tuesday.

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Just clicking on the link to one of the applications that were taking advantage of the bug would allow the auto-posting to happen, Facebook said The apps, which appeared to be sending people to a survey Web site, were disabled on Monday, the company said.

“Earlier this week, we discovered a bug that made it possible for an application to bypass our normal CSRF (cross-site request forgery) protections through a complicated series of steps. We quickly worked to resolve the issue and fixed it within hours of discovering it,” Facebook said in a statement. “For a short period of time before it was fixed, several applications that violated our policies were able to post content to people’s profiles if those people first clicked on a link to the application.”

Facebook users should be wary of suspicious-looking links, even if they come from friends.

AllFacebook called it ”one of the fastest spreading scams we’ve seen on Facebook to date, and also one of the largest security glitches in the Facebook platform.”

The scam comes just days after Facebook fixed a similar bug in its photo-uploading process that allowed a spammer to post photos to people’s profiles that had not been approved.


Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20015728-245.html?tag=mantle_skin;content#ixzz0z4eWs7MP

re-posted from The Austin Geek Blog