Microsoft is moving on many fronts, after the announcement of Office Mobile to iPhone Microsoft announced a new partnership with Best Buy to put Windows Stores to their locations. The total numbers of Windows Stores is 600, 500 in U.S and 100 in Canada. It is basically Microsoft stores where users will be able to see and try several devices and services. Microsoft will try to show that using its products make the life of the user easier and more productive. Among the products there will be Windows based PCs, tablets, Windows phones, Xbox and Microsoft Office. I am very curious to see how all this will affect the sales of Windows 8 and Windows Phones.
Jun 14
Microsoft Office for iPhone
Microsoft and Apple are competitors but from time to time Microsoft ports its solutions to Apple’s operating systems. The most popular product is Microsoft office and they announced Office Mobile for iPhone. The application is going to be free for the users that have Office 365 subscription. This will allow iPhone users to open, edit and share their documents through the app. It is a good deal for both companies and their users. It is nice watch companies from time to time working together. It is worth to mention that Microsoft has Apple shares since the beginning, when Bill Gates and Steve Jobs started those big tech giants. Microsoft created several ads saying that Google Docs are not for professionals and they mess with the formatting.
Jun 09
Mobile malware can be activated with sound, light or vibration
I like to read and get informed about vulnerabilities and malicious software for mobile devices. There are news on that field every day and those are the ones that are public. I can’t imagine what else is not known due to the fact that are not yet published or are found by black hat hackers and remain secret. University of Alabama’s researches have published a research paper with the title “Sensing-Enabled Channels for Hard-to-Detect Command and Control of Mobile Devices”. In this paper they show that it is possible to activate a malware hidden in your mobile device with sound, light or vibration.
Jun 08
Malicious iOS charger
People are getting more and more suspicious when downloading applications to their devices and hackers now try to gain access through hardware. Mobile users usually prefer something cheaper that is suitable with their device instead on the expensive original peripheral and/or accessory. Researchers have created a custom iPhone charger that can infect any iOS device with malware. They said that all users and all iOS devices are affected by this malicious charger. If this wasn’t enough, attackers hide their malware like Apple does with its build-in applications and users can’t uninstall it.
Jun 08
How to fix Firefox – Flash problems
If you are reading this post it means that you are one of us that updated the flash and it stopped working on Firefox. It happened to me several times on different computers and uninstalling, reinstalling both Firefox and Flash player didn’t work, it was still not working. Everything is fine and suddenly, because you updated something now nothing is working, you can’t watch videos online, you can’t play flash games and you can’t visit a flash website. Firefox was, is and will be the web browser of my choice and Flash crashes will not change that.
May 24
Windows zero day vulnerability allows SYSTEM access to all Windows versions
I read about exploits for all operating systems but this one really scared me. Security researchers found a zero day vulnerability in the Windows core that when exploited gives SYSTEM access to all supported versions of Windows so far. This includes Windows 7 with latest updates and Windows 8. Microsoft confirmed the vulnerability and I hope that they are working on a fix. A vulnerability that is more than 20 years old, in my Country it can legally drink alcohol, drive a car and vote! It sounds like a hackers holy grail and in wrong hands it can make a lot of harm.
May 22
Windows 8: Stop your PC from waking up automatically
I’ve installed Windows 8 weeks ago and recently my PC started to gain intelligence. It found a clever way to annoy me where normal people can’t do that so easily. I prefer sleep mode instead of shut down because I have a lot of programs open and this saves me time. I was putting my computer to sleep mode and then immediately was waking up. I thought it was a wireless mouse that I have as I enabled USB devices to be able to wake my system. I removed that and I tried again, the same issue, then again until after few tries it stopped waking up. Then again the next day but this time it was worse and after few minutes that I manage to put it to sleep it woke up again. This was obviously an issue that had to stop and because I like to fix things, here we are.
May 20
Windows 8: Disable Maintenance Tasks
Microsoft has default maintenance tasks running without you even knowing about them. One is running when the system is idle and the other by default every day at 03:00. This second one is very annoying and it causes many strange problems and behavior. If your computer is waking up is because of this scheduled task and another setting that I will tell you in a next post how to disable. In this post I will explain how to disable those maintenance tasks for those who doesn’t like them.
May 19
WordPress: Fix maintenance mode
If you installed or updated a plugin and your website is unavailable for a long time with the message “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.” then something went wrong. It is stuck in the maintenance mode but don’t worry, the fix is easy and fast. Open the file manager or go with your FTP to the root directory and you will find a .maintenance file. If you delete it your website will come back to normal. I told you that it is easy and fast! If you have, or had, more issues with your WordPress then contact me to post it and help others that might have the same issue.
May 17
France Dreams of Free Software Digital Age
France has so much respect for its cultural industry, including the ones produced in this digital age. In order to further improve and preserve the works of its artists, the government has made various steps as forms of protecting their culture. One proposal that is receiving so much attention is Mission Lescure, a study commissioned by the government and led by Pierre Lescure, the former CEO of the French broadcast group Canal+. This study aims to fight commercial counterfeiting and protect French cultural works, including music. It also suggests CSA as the new watchdog that will replace Hadopi. Its task will be to enforce antipiracy regulations and serve as vanguard for all “cultural and audiovisual media, linear as well as non-linear.”