The War Between Apple and Adobe

There has been a lot of words exchanged between Adobe and Steve Jobs. At issue is Steve Jobs' ban on Adobe's Flash on the iPhone and iPad. There is a lot of obfuscation and confusion about this fight, mostly from Apple-land. Steve Jobs claims he is banning Flash on his i-Whatever because of security reasons. He also says that new web page designing standard, HTML5, does what Flash does and thus Flash is irrelevant. That is a misdirection.

Flash has been around for a long time. Flash enables you to play games, watch videos on YouTube, and do all sorts of neat tricks. Web pages are coded in a language called HTML, Hyper Text Markup Language, and managed by the W3C. The web page designing standards are purposefully kept simple. This is because a simple design ensures compatibility and consistency among a broad range of devices. The new standard, still being designed, is called HTML5. HTML5 supports video playback without Flash and provides some other visual improvements to web pages. One of the benefits of Flash is that it picks up where HTML leaves off by providing neat effects. Many internet games now use Flash. Of course, Flash has been used to deliver annoying ads that take a long time to load. But the benefits of Flash are worth the abuse by advertisers.

Flash does have many security problems. But that isn't the reason why Apple will not allow Flash, or Microsoft's version of Flash called Silverlight, on their i-Products. The real reason is if Flash was allowed, Apple could not control what is allowed to go on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod. There would millions of apps that will flood the marketplace that use Flash, and Apple won't see one cent of that money. In the current system, Apple makes a cut of all the apps sold. If there was Flash on the i-Something, Apple would lose millions each year. That is why Flash and Silverlight are banned.

Of course, Techs-on-Call does not have an iPad or an iPhone to play with, so we cannot give you an objective review of the products. We are planning to get an iPad soon so that we can help you with yours and make an objective opinion about it. We really are waiting for it to be out a while so some of the kinks will be ironed out. More information about our opinion when Techs-on-Call buys one.

Posted by Wade Burchette at 8:51 AM - Categories: Annoyances | News

Hackers Compromise Jerusalem Post Website

Yesterday hackers attacked the Jerusalem Post website and planted malware on it. While it appears this attack has nothing to do with the recent events between Israel and the Gaza strip, this does highlight the tactics used by malware creators. They want to target as many people as possible, which is why Windows is attacked and why popular websites are attacked. They also run ads for real well-known companies by actually carry malware. Malware is highly profitable and effective. And unfortunately, the bad guys have the time and ability to study every little weakness in every system. They are always two steps ahead. Greed does that the people.

The tricks malware creators use are both direct and indirect. Hacking a website is an indirect way of planting malware because they must exploit a system to secretly install the malware. These attacks are harder, but more difficult to shut down and trace. Direct attacks involve tricking you into carrying out some action. These attacks exploit the weakness of the person.

One of the most effective tools against Malware is to use the FireFox browser along with the NoScript add-in. NoScript is complex, but when used it can block just about every form of indirect secret attack on your computer. FireFox sometimes warns you when a website is compromised; a warning is a great defense against malware.

Sophos labs has a report on the Jerusalem Post attack.

0 comments - Posted by Wade Burchette at 4:51 PM - Categories: Malware | News

Microsoft Ending Bing Cashback

Microsoft announced they were ending Bing cashback. Microsoft states that the program ends on July 30.

Bing cashback was started in 2008. Microsoft loves to take someone's work and try to make it their own. Bill Gates did not make MS-DOS, he bought it from someone else. Microsoft did not invent the graphical user interface idea, they copied it from someone else. And so on. Sometimes Microsoft makes someone's idea better. Internet Explorer was much better than Netscape. Microsoft Office is still far superior than anything else on the market. And Windows 7 is, in my opinion, the best operating system ever. Microsoft had their fingers in many pies. But one very lucrative market Microsoft did not have was the web advertisements. Google was king there because Google married ads with their search engine in a non-annoying manner. Because Google was able to have effective and simple ads all the while providing a great way to search the internet, they started making money hand over fist. Microsoft wanted that.

So Microsoft started Live search. If people would begin to use Microsoft search, they could copy Google's profitable model. The problem was, Live search couldn't find ice at the north pole. So Microsoft changed the name to Bing, called a decision engine, and offered a financial incentive to switch. The problem was Bing still was an inferior search engine and people like me only used Bing to shop all the while using something else to search the internet. (In fact, I was able to find what I needed off Microsoft's website better using Google than Bing.) Now the cashback program is ending.

Microsoft has many failures. In my opinion, those who do everything do nothing well. I think Microsoft should focus on Windows and Office and leave everything else alone.

0 comments - Posted by Wade Burchette at 1:24 PM - Categories: News

June 2010 Technology Update

A big announcement was made by Intel recently, but other than that, the three most important hardware companies for your personal computer -- AMD, Intel, and NVidia -- have been silent. No new significant advancement have been made this year, but in about 12 months from now, AMD is introducing a new CPU that may change how low-cost and specialized computers are made. Then again, it may not and it may not ever happen. This blog will describe what the three big hardware companies are up to and how it applies to you, the average person. We are going to start first with the company that is in sore straights, NVidia.

Read more...

Posted by Wade Burchette at 8:00 PM - Categories: General | News

Fake Antivirus Group Wants To Hire You

Need a job? Well, a fake antivirus group posted a job on freelancer.com. This is more proof that fake antivirus software is big business. And it shows how confident they have become that their business will continue. Or they are very stupid. Or maybe they are both. Probably both bold and stupid.

So how much does such a job pay? Between $30 to $250. But it appears the "company" hiring has a great rating. One reviewer said "Nice buyer, hope can work for him again in the future." Which, of course, has all a trait of being a bogus review because it is only glowing. Besides, how trustworthy can a company be if their main source of income involves scamming people? Be that as it may, the major fake antivirus players, of which this is not one, do pay people based on the number of computers they infect.

The biggest threat today is not viruses, but malicious software (malware). The biggest malware threat is fake antivirus. It is successful and it is very profitable. When you take down one, five more appear in its place. Few people will give up easy money without a fight.

For more information, and a snapshot of the listing, visit The Register's article about this.

By the way, 33 years ago today, the first Star Wars movie was released. And not coincidently, 27 years ago today, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi was released.

0 comments - Posted by Wade Burchette at 5:59 PM - Categories: News | Security

The "I'm a Mac" Commercials Are Over

Perhaps you remember the "I'm A Mac" commercials with commedian John Hodgeman, from The Daily Show, and actor Justin Long. Well, Mac Rumors confirms that they are indeed dead. All good things must come to an end eventually. I still miss the Taco Bell chihuahua. And my favorite commercial ever was the Leith automotive badger.

The idea behind the "I'm a Mac" commercial was that PC's were stodgy un-cool devices and Macs were hip and so much better. They did help Apple's image at first. But later on it turned into an anti-PC diatribe full of slander and misinformation. Not only that, people liked John Hodgeman better. The message was lost because people like the antagonists more than the protaganist. When that happened, the only people who the commercials were effective for were people who already worshipped at Apple's temple. The commercials were preaching to the choir, as it were, and thus not helping Apple's cause at all.

Read more...

0 comments - Posted by Wade Burchette at 3:19 PM - Categories: News

HP May Release Tablet Computer in 3Q

This is from Engadget. The rumor is HP is planning a true iPad rival for the 3rd quarter. This is a direct result of the Palm aquasition. HP was planning on a tablet based on Windows 7. The problem with that was the processors that run Windows 7 use too much electricity, thus the battery life of a Windows 7 tablet would be very bad. Of course, the nice thing about Windows is the freedom of choice when it comes to programs. An app would not have to be approved by a toll booth/gatekeeper. All apps on the iPod/iPhone/iPad must be Apple approved and pay an Apple royalty. But then HP bought Palm.

Palm made a very good but underappreciated cell phone. Part of Palm's problems was the commercial they made to promote their cell phone was just too weird. The commercial disaster ensured Palm would not make any market headway against Blackberry and Apple. Palm was in danger of going under. That would be a tragedy since the Palm software was very good. HP bought Palm at a bargain (relatively speaking). It may seem strange that a PC giant would buy a cell phone company, but now we know why.

Recall that iPad is nothing but oversized iPod Touch and the iPhone is nothing but an iPod Touch that can make calls. In both cases, it is the same basic software, just modified a little. The general assumption is that HP is copying Apple for the tablet. HP is going to put the Palm interface on a tablet computer. The Palm operating system software works on a lower power processor, the ARM processor. Yes the ARM has less processing power than the Intel Atom, the processor HP was going to use and the one found in Netbooks. But since the software was designed the ARM processor, it doesn't need that power.

Here is a good guess as to what will happen. HP's tablet will be superior to the iPad in every way. But since HP isn't Apple, it won't be as successful nor have as many apps. The genius behind Apple is that Steve Jobs can sell dirt in a box (iDirt), convince you that iDirt is needed or that iDirt is far superior than than your regular dirt, and sell iDirt at a huge markup. Steve Jobs is just that good. HP is big enough to make this successful. But it probably will never sell as well as the iPad.

0 comments - Posted by Wade Burchette at 10:50 AM - Categories: News